
Qass 

Book— 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



IN ANCIENT 
ALBEMARLE 



By Catherine Albertson 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

NORTH CAROLINA SOCIETY DAUGHTERS 
OF THE REVOLUTION 



ILLUSTRATED FROM DRAWINGS BY 
MABEL PUGH 



RALEIGH 

COMMERCIAL PRINTING COMPANY 
1914 






Copyright, 1914 

BY 

Catherine Albertson 



DEC 31 1914 



CU391191 



DEDICATION 



To 

Mary Hilliard Hinton 

State Regent Daxjghtees of the Revolution 

without whose aid and encouragement 

these chapters would never 

have been written 

— C A. 



THE PERQUIMANS RIVER 

From the Great Swamp's mysterious depths, 
Where wild beasts lurk and strange winds sough ; 
From ancient forests dense and dark, 
Where gray moss wreathes the cypress bough ; 
'Mid marshes green with flowers starred. 
Through fens where reeds and rushes sway, 
Past fertile fields of waving grain, 
Down to the sea I take my way. 

The wild swan floats upon my breast; 
The sea-gulls to my waters sink; 
And stealing to my low green shores, 
The timid deer oft stoops to drink. 
The yellow jessamine's golden bells 
Ring on my banks their fairy chime ; 
And tall flag lilies bow and bend, 
To the low music keeping time. 

Between my narrow, winding banks. 
For many a mile I dream along 
'Mid silence deep, unbroken save 
By rustling reed, or wild bird's song ; 
Or murmuring of my shadowed waves 
Beneath the feathery cypress trees. 
Or pines, responsive to the breath 
Of winds that breathe sea memories. 

So far removed seem shore and stream. 
From sound and sight of mart or mill. 
That Kilcokonen's painted braves 
Might roam my woods and marshes still. 
And still, as in the days of yore, 
Ere yet the white man's sail I knew. 
Upon my amber waves might skim 
The Indian maiden's light canoe. 



Thus, half asleep, I dream along, 
Till low at first, and far away. 
Then louder, more insistent, calls 
A voice my heart would fain obey. 
And by a force resistless drawn. 
The narrow banks that fetter me 
I thrust apart, and onward sweep 
In quiet strength toward the sea. 

I leave my marshes and my fens; 
I dream no more upon my way ; 
But forward press, a river grown. 
In the great world my part to play. 
Upon my wide and ample breast, 
The white-winged boats go hurrying by 
And on my banks the whirring wheels 
Of busy mills hum ceaselessly. 

And sharing man's incessant toil, 
I journey ever onward down, 
With many a lovely sister stream. 
With all the waters of the Sound, 
To join the sea, whose billows break, 
In silver spray, in wild uproar, 
Upon the golden bars that guard 
The lonely Carolina shore. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I. Wikacome in Weapomeiok, the Home of George 

Durant 1 

II. The First Albemarle Assembly — Hall's Creek, 

near Nixon ton 13 

III. Enfield Farm — Where the Culpeper Rebellion 

Began 19 

IV. The Heckletield Farm 31 

V. Colonial Days in Church and School on Little 

River, Pasquotank County 46 

VI. The Haunts of Blackbeard . . . . . 54 

VII. The Old Brick House— a True History of the 
Historic Dwelling Reputed to be the Home 
of the Famous Pirate 62 

VIII. "Elm wood," the Old Swann Homestead in Pas- 
quotank County 66 

IX. Pasquotank in Colonial Wars 72 

X. Pasquotank in Colonial Wars — "The War of 

Jenkins' Ear" 78 

XI. A Soldier of the Revolution— The Story of a 

Pasquotank Boy Who Followed Washington 84 

XII. General Isaac Gregory, a Revolutionary Officer 

of Pasquotank-Camden 93 

XIII. Perquimans County — "Land of Beautiful 

W^omen," and the Colonial Town of Hert- 
ford 114 

XIV. Currituck, the Haunt of the Wild Fowl . . 134 
XV. Edenton in the Revolution 153 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing 
Page 

Old Float Bridge Across the Perquimans 

River Frontispiece ^ 

"The Old Brick House," on Pasquotank River . . 62*^ 

Fairfax, tlie Home of General Isaac Gregory . . 112 

The Eagle Tavern, Hertford 130'' 

The Cupola House, Edenton 154 



IN ANCIENI ALBEMARi 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 



CHAPTER I 

WIKACOME IN WEAPOMEIOK, THE HOME OF 
GEORGE DURANT 

IN Perquimans County, North Carolina, there 
lies between the beautiful Perquimans River 
on the west, and her fair and placid sister, the 
Katoline or Little River, on the east, a lovely strip 
of land to which the red man in days long gone, 
gave the name of Wikacome. The broad sound 
whose tawny waters wash the southern shores of 
this peninsula, as well as all that tract of land 
lying between the Chowan River and the Atlantic 
Ocean, were known to the primitive dwellers in 
that region as Weapomeiok. 

Not until George Durant came into Carolina, 
and following him a thin stream of settlers that 
finally overflowed the surrounding country, did 
the beautiful Indian names give place to those by 
which they are now known. Then Wikacome be- 
came the familiar Durant's Neck, and the waters 
of Weapomeiok and the territory known to the 
aborigines by the same name, changed to the his- 
toric cognomen of Albemarle. 

George Durant and Samuel Pricklove were the 
first of the Anglo-Saxon race to establish a perma- 
nent settlement in Wikacome, though they were 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

not the first Englishmen whose eyes had rested 
upon its virgin forests and fair green meadows, 
for in the early spring of 1586 Ralph Lane, who 
had been sent with Sir Richard Grenville by Sir 
Walter Raleigh to colonize Roanoke Island, set out 
with fourteen comrades from that place on an 
exploring expedition, hoping to find the golden 
"Will-o'-the-Wisp,'' which led so many English 
adventurers of the day to seek their fortunes in 
the New World. 

As far as the Roanoke River sailed the bold 
explorer and his comrades, among whom were 
Philip Amadas and the historian Hakluyt. To 
the south as far as Craven County they pushed 
their little boat, and northward to the shores of 
Chesapeake Bay. In the course of their journey 
they touched at Chepanock, an Indian village 
lying at the extremity of Durant's Neck. And 
Lane relates that on his return trip he stopped 
again at that point to secure a supply of provis- 
ions, and to fish in the sound. 

It was Easter morning, 1586, when Lane and 
his hardy sailors, worn out from their rough voy- 
age down the Chowan and up the tawny waters of 
the sound, sailed into the quiet harbor of the Kato- 
line River. Half starved, for the hostile tribes 
of the Mangoaks on the Chowan River, after being 
repulsed in an attack upon the strangers, had 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

refused to sell them food, Lane and his men, for 
two days without means of staying their hunger, 
hoped to buy from the Indians of Weapomeiok the 
provisions so sorely needed. 

But when the little band of explorers rowed 
their small craft to the shore, and set out in search 
of corn and meat, they found the wigwams of 
Chepanock deserted, and no sign of the red men. 
The Indians doubtless had been alarmed at the 
sight of the strangers when they first stopped at 
the village, and had fled from their homes to the 
interior of the country. 

No corn nor meal could Lane procure, but the 
weirs were full of fish, and the men were able to 
satisfy their hunger, and having rested at Chepa- 
nock that night they returned to Roanoke Island 
next morning. When the plash of their oars died 
away in the distance, the waters of the Katoline 
and the northern shores of Weapomeiok knew the 
white man's sails no more until over half a cen- 
tury had passed away. 

Lane and his colony, discouraged in their hopes 
of finding gold, and disheartened by the many 
misfortunes that had befallen them, sailed back to 
England with Sir Francis Drake. Raleigh's second 
attempt a year later to establish a colony on Roan- 
oke Island ended in the pathetic story of little 
Virginia Dare and the ''Lost Colony." Queen 

3 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Elizabeth died, and the tyrannical reign of James 
I came to an end. Charles I and Cromwell waged 
their bitter war; the Commonwealth and Protec- 
torate ran their brief course, and the Restoration 
of 1660 brought back the third of the Stuarts to 
the throne of England. 

During all these changes in the ownership of 
Carolina and her sister colonies, the red man 
roamed unmolested through the forests of Wika- 
come and fished the weirs in the silver streams 
flowing into the broad waters of Weapomeiok, un- 
afraid of the great, white-winged boats of the pale 
face. These brief visits to his shores were now 
remembered only when the tribes gathered around 
the great camp fires at night, and listened to 
the tales told by ancient braves and squaws, to 
whom the appearance of the swift ships of the 
strangers now seemed only a dim, half-remem- 
bered dream. 

But as the years rolled by, venturesome hunt- 
ers and trappers from Virginia began to thread 
their way through the tangled woods of the region 
lying to the south of the Chesapeake. Return- 
ing to their homes they carried with them glowing 
accounts of the mild climate, the placid streams 
teeming with fish, the wild game and rich furs to 
be found in the country through which they had 
wandered. 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

In 1630 Sir Robert Heath, to whom Charles I 
granted a large portion of Carolina, attempted to 
establish a settlement in the territory. Later 
Roger Green, an English clergyman, made a sim- 
ilar attempt near the present town of Edenton, 
but both these efforts failed. However, the spirit 
of discovery and adventure was now fully aroused, 
and by 1656 a number of settlements had been 
established along the shores of the streams that 
flow into Albemarle Sound. Of none of these, 
however, can any accurate account be given, their 
date and location having long been forgotten ; and 
not until 1661 is there any authenticated record 
of a permanent settlement in North Carolina. 

A year or two previous to that date, George 
Durant, a planter from Virginia, attracted by 
the enthusiastic accounts he had heard of the de- 
sirable lands to be found lying to the south, started 
out on an exploring expedition to see for himself 
if all he had heard of the Indian land of Weapo- 
meiok were true, intending, if the country came 
up to his expectations, there to establish his home. 

For nearly two years Durant journeyed through 
the country, and finally satisfied that the glowing 
accounts he had heard were not exaggerated, he 
determined to bring his wife and family, his 
goods and chattels, into this new "Land of Prom- 
ise," and there build for himself a house to dwell 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

in, and to clear away the forest for a plantation. 
The first spot selected by him for his future home 
was very near the ancient Indian village of Chepa- 
nock, on the peninsula of Wikacome, which juts 
out into the wide waters of Weapomeiok, and 
whose shores are watered by the Katoline and the 
Perquimans rivers. 

With the coming of George Durant to Carolina, 
the old Indian name Wikacome vanishes from his- 
tory, and ''Durant's Neck" becomes the name by 
which that section is henceforth known. The 
sound and the region north of it, first known as 
Weapomeiok, change to Albemarle ; and the Kato- 
line River soon loses its Indian designation, and is 
known to the settlers who made their homes on its 
banks as the ^'Little River." 

With the establishment of George Durant on 
the peninsula now called by his name, the con- 
nected history of North Carolina begins. And it 
is a matter of pride to the citizens of the Old 
North State that our first settler, with a sturdy 
honesty and a sense of justice shown but seldom 
to the red man by the pioneers in the colonies, 
bought from the Indian chief, Kilcokonen ''for a 
valuable consideration" the land on which he es- 
tablished his home. The deed for this tract of 
land is now in the old court-house in Hertford, 



6 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

North Carolina, and is the earliest recorded in the 
history of our State. The following is an exact 
copy of this ancient document : 

"George Durant's Deed 

from 

Kilcokonen : 

"Know all men these Presents that I, Kilcoko- 
nen King of the Yeopems have for a valuable con- 
sideration of satisfaction received with ye consent 
of my People sold and made over and delivered to 
George Durant, a Parcel of land lying and being 
on a river called by ye name of Perquimans, which 
issueth out of the North side of the aforesaid 
Sound, and which land at present bears ye name 
of Wecameke. Beginning at a marked oak tree 
which divideth this land from ye land I formerly 
sold Samuel Precklove and extending easterly up 
ye said Sound at a point or turning of ye afore- 
said Perquimans River and so up ye east side of 
ye said river to a creek called Awoseake to wit, 
all ye land between ye aforesaid bounds of Samuel 
Precklove and the said creek whence to ye head 
thereof. And thence through ye woods to ye first 
bounds. To have and to hold ye quiet possession 
of ye same to him, his heirs forever, with all 
rights and privileges thereto forever from me or 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

any person or persons whatsoever, as witness my 
hand this first day of March 1661. 

"KILCOKONEN. 
"Test: Thos Weamouth, Caleb Callaway." 

Having thus fairly and justly bought his lands, 
as this and other deeds from Kilcokonen testify, 
Durant proceeded to establish his belongings on 
his estate, and to take up the strenuous life of a 
pioneer in a new country. 

And a fairer region never gladdened the eyes of 
men making a new home in a strange land. In the 
virgin forests surrounding the settlers' homes, the 
crimson berried holly tree against the dark back- 
ground of lofty pines brightened the winter land- 
scape. The opulent Southern spring flung wide 
the white banners of dogwood, enriched the forest 
aisles with fretted gold of jessamine and scarlet 
of coral honeysuckle, and spread the ground with 
carpet of velvet moss, of rosy azaleas and blue- 
eyed innocents. The wide rivers that flow in 
placid beauty by the wooded banks of ancient 
Wikacome, formed a highway for the commerce 
of the settlors and a connecting link with the outer 
sea. An^ however fierce and bold the wild crea- 
tures of those dark forests might be, the teeming 
fish and game of the surrounding woods and 
waters kept far from the settlers* doors the wolf 
of want and hunger. 

8 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

The fame of this fertile spot spread, and ere 
long George Durant was greeting many newcom- 
ers into the country. Samuel Pricklove had pre- 
ceded him into Wikacome, and later came George 
Catchmaid, Captain John Hecklefield and Richard 
Sanderson, while later still the Blounts, the Whed- 
bees, the Newbys, Harveys and Skinners, names 
still prominent in Albemarle, came into the 
neighborhood and settled throughout Perquimans 
County. 

At the homes of the planters on Durant's Neck 
the public business of the Albemarle Colony was 
for many years transacted. Courts were held, 
councils convened, and assemblies called, while 
from the wharves of the planters on Little River 
and the Perquimans, white-sailed vessels carried 
the produce of the rich fields and dense forests to 
New England, to the West Indies and to the 
mother country. 

Many of the most interesting events in the early 
history of Albemarle occurred on Durant's Neck. 
The Culpeper Rebellion, of which George Durant 
and John Culpeper were among the leaders, began 
in Pasquotank, but reached its culmination in Du- 
rant's home on Little River. There, also, Thomas 
Miller was imprisoned for a time, and there the 
leaders of the rebellion organized a new people's 
government, the first in the New World absolutely 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

independent of Proprietors, Parliament and King. 
At Hecklefield's home on Little River, the plan- 
tation adjoining Durant's, the Assembly of 1708 
met to investigate the Cary-Glover question and 
to decide which of those two claimants to the 
gubernatorial chair had rightful authority to 
occupy that exalted seat. There also George Eden 
was sworn in as ruler of North Carolina under 
the Proprietors; and there the death of Queen 
Anne was announced to the Governor's Council, 
and George I was formally proclaimed true and 
lawful sovereign of Carolina. 

A prominent meeting place for the courts, coun- 
cils and assemblies in Colonial Albemarle was the 
home of Captain Richard Sanderson in the Little 
River settlement on Durant's Neck. Of the many 
notable events that occurred at the home of this 
wealthy and influential planter, probably the As- 
sembly of 1715 leads in interest and importance. 
The acts passed by this Assembly were directed to 
be printed, but the order was evidently never 
carried out, as none but manuscript copies are 
now extant. 

Among the most important measures taken by 
this Assembly was one making the Church of 
England the established Church of the Colony; 
though freedom of worship was granted to all, 
and the Quakers were allowed to substitute a 



10 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

solemn affirmation in lieu of an oath. Other 
acts, necessary to the welfare of the Colony, were 
passed, and a revision of all former acts was 
made. Edward Moseley, Speaker of the House, 
was of course present on this occasion, as were 
Governor Eden, Thomas Byrd, of Pasquotank, 
Tobias Knight, of Currituck, Christopher Gale, 
of Chowan, and Maurice Moore, of Perquimans. 
Of all these old homes on Durant's Neck where 
so much of the early history of our State was 
made, none are now standing; though the sites of 
several of these historic places are well known to 
the dwellers on the peninsula. When the tide is 
low on Little River, the bricks of what was once 
the home of Governor Drummond can be seen. 
And an old tombstone found in the sound, which 
is now used as the lower step of the side porch in 
a beautiful old home, on Durant's Neck, once the 
property of Mr. Edward Leigh, but now owned 
by Mr. C. W. Grandy, of Norfolk, is said to have 
once marked the grave of Seth Sothel. The in- 
scription on the stone is now obliterated, but the 
original owners of the home declared that the old 
inhabitants of Durant's Neck claimed that the 
slab at one time bore the name of this, the most 
infamous of all the unworthy Governors whom 
the Proprietors placed over the people of Albe- 
marle. 

11 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

The site of Durant's home is well known, and 
until a few years ago a tombstone bearing his 
name, it is said, was standing under an old sweet- 
gum tree on the bank of a great ditch near the 
sound. But the field hands in clearing the ditch 
undermined the stone and covered it with earth, 
so it now lies hidden from view. 

But though no monument now marks the rest- 
ing place of our first settler, George Durant, there 
is no need of ^'storied urn or animated bust" to 
keep alive in the hearts of his countrymen the 
memory of his name, and of the brave, fearless 
spirit which made him a tower of strength to the 
Old North State in the struggles of her early days. 



12 



CHAPTER II 

THE FIRST ALBEMARLE ASSEMBLY — HALL'S CREEK 
NEAR NIXONTON 

IN 1663 King Charles II granted to eight noble- 
men of his court a tract of land reaching from 
the northern shores of Albemarle Sound to 
St. John's River in Florida, and from the Atlantic 
Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. A small strip extend- 
ing from the north shore of the Albemarle Sound 
to the southern boundary of Virginia was not 
included in this grant, but nevertheless the Lords 
Proprietors, of whom Governor Berkeley, of Vir- 
ginia, was one, assumed control over this section ; 
and in 1663 these noblemen authorized Berkeley to 
appoint a governor to rule over this territory, 
whose ownership was a disputed question for 
several years. 

In 1665 the Albemarle region, as it came to be 
called, comprising the four ancient counties of 
Currituck, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Chowan, 
had become very valuable on account of the rich 
plantations established therein by such men as 
George Durant, of Perquimans, and Valentine 
Byrd, of Pasquotank; and the Lords Proprietors, 
as the owners of the Carolinas were called, begged 
the king to include the above-named strip of land 



13 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

in their grant. This the king did, ignorant of the 
vast extent of the territory which he had already 
bestowed upon the Lords. 

William Drummond, whom Berkeley, of Vir- 
ginia, had appointed to govern this Albemarle 
country, came into Carolina in 1664, and assumed 
the reins of government. To assist him in his 
arduous duties, the Lords authorized Berkeley to 
appoint six of the most prominent men in the set- 
tlement to form what came to be known as the 
Governor's Council. This body of men, with the 
Governor, acted for many years as the judicial 
department of the State, and also corresponded to 
what is now the Senate Chamber in our legislative 
department. 

That the liberty-loving pioneers in Carolina 
might feel that they were a self-governing people, 
every free man in the settlement was to have right 
of membership in the General Assembly, which 
was to meet yearly to enact the laws. After the 
Governor, Councillors, and the freemen or their 
deputies had passed the laws, a copy of them was 
to be sent to the Lords for their consideration. 
Should they meet with the approval of the Pro- 
prietors, they went into effect; if not, they were 
null and void. 

In the fall of 1664, Governor Drummond began 
organizing the government of his new province; 



14 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

and on February 6, 1665, the ''Grand Assembly of 
Albemarle," as these early law-makers styled 
themselves, met to frame a set of laws for this 
Albemarle Colony. The place chosen for the 
meeting of this first legislative body ever assem- 
bled in our State, was a little knoll overlooking 
Hall's Creek in Pasquotank County, about a mile 
from Nixonton, a small town which was chartered 
nearly a hundred years later. 

No record of the names of these hardy settlers 
who were present at this Grand Assembly has 
been handed down to us ; but on such an important 
occasion we may be sure that all the prominent 
men in the Albemarle region who could attend 
would make it a point to do so. 

George Drummond and his secretary, Thomas 
Woodward, were surely there; George Durant, 
Samuel Pricklove, John Harvey, all owners of 
great plantations in Perquimans, doubtless were 
on hand. Thomas Raulfe, Timothy Biggs, Valen- 
tine Byi-d, Solomon Poo^^' ^^1 large landowners in 
Pasquotank, must have been there; Thomas Jar- 
vis, of Currituck, and Thomas Pollock, of Chowan, 
may have represented their counties. And all — 
the dignified, reserved Scotch Governor, his 
haughty secretary, the wealthy, influential plan- 
ters and the humble farmers and hunters — must 
have felt the solemnity of the occasion and recog- 
nized its importance. 

15 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

We may imagine the scene : Under the spread- 
ing boughs of a lordly oak, this group of men were 
gathered. Around them the dark forest stretched, 
the wind murmuring in the pines and fragrant 
with the aromatic odor of the spicy needles. At 
a distance a group of red men, silent and immov- 
able, some with bow and arrow in hand, leaning 
against the trees, others sitting on the ground, 
gazed with wondering eyes upon the palefaces 
assembled for their first great pow-wow. 

Down at the foot of the knoll the silver waves 
of the creek rippled softly against the shore; on 
its waters the sloops of the planters from the set- 
tlements nearby; here and there on its bosom, an 
Indian canoe moored close to its shores. 

As to the work accomplished by this first Albe- 
marle Assembly, only one fact is certain, and that 
is the drawing up by the members of a petition to 
the Lords Proprietors, begging that these settlers 
in Carolina should be allowed to hold their lands 
on the same conditions and terms as the people of 
Virginia. The Lords graciously consented to this 
petition, and on the 1st of May, 1668, they issued 
a paper known to this day as the Deed of Grant, 
by which land in Albemarle was directed to be 
granted on the same terms as in Virginia. The 
deed was duly recorded in Albemarle, and was 
preserved with scrupulous care. 



16 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

There is a tradition in the county that the As- 
sembly also took steps for preparing for an Indian 
war then threatening, which broke out the follow- 
ing year, but was soon suppressed. 

Doubtless other laws were enacted, such as were 
necessary for the settlement, though no record of 
them is extant. And then, the business that called 
them together having been transacted, and the 
wheels of government set in motion, these early 
law-makers returned home, to manor house and 
log cabin, to the care of the great plantations, 
to the plow, and the wild, free life of the hunter 
and trapper; and a new government had been 
born. 

There seems to be no doubt in the minds of such 
historians as Colonel Saunders, Captain Ashe, 
and President D. H. Hill, that the first Albemarle 
Assembly did convene in the early spring of 1665. 
As for the day and month, tradition alone is our 
authority. An old almanac of H. D. Turner's gives 
the date as February 6th, and in default of any 
more certain date, this was inscribed upon the 
tablet which the Sir Walter Raleigh Chapter 
Daughters of the Revolution have erected at HalFs 
Creek Church. 

As to the statement that the place marked by 
the tablet was the scene of the meeting of our first 
assemblymen, tradition again is responsible. But 



17 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

such authorities as Captain Ashe, and various 
members of the State Historical Commission, 
accept the tradition as a fact. And all old resi- 
dents of Nixonton assert that their fathers and 
grandfathers handed the story down to them. 

An extract from a letter from Captain Ashe, 
author of Ashe's History of North Carolina, to 
the Regent of the local Chapter Daughters of the 
Revolution may be of interest here: 

''Yesterday I came across in the library at 
Washington, this entry, made by the late Mrs. 
Frances Hill, widow of Secretary of the State Wil- 
liam Hill: *I was born in Nixonton March 14, 
1789. Nixonton is a small town one mile from 
Hall's Creek, and on a little rise of ground from 
the bridge stood the big oak, where the first set- 
tlers of our county held their assembly.' " 

Other documents in possession of the Regent of 
our local Chapter Daughters of the Revolution go 
to show that the place and date as named on the 
tablet at Hall's Creek are authentic, and that Pas- 
quotank County may claim with truth the honor of 
having been the scene of the first meeting of the 
Grand Assembly of Albemarle* 



18 



CHAPTER III 

ENFIELD FARM — WHERE THE CULPEPER 
REBELLION BEGAN 

SOME two or three miles south of Elizabeth 
City on the banks of the Pasquotank River, 
just where that lovely stream suddenly 
broadens out into a wide and beautiful expanse, 
lies the old plantation known in our county from 
earliest days as Enfield Farm, sometimes Winfield. 
It is hard to trace the original owners of the 
plantation, but the farm is probably part of the 
original patent granted in 1663 by Sir William 
Berkeley, one of the Lords Proprietors, to Mr. 
Thomas Relfe, "on account of his bringing into 
the colony fifteen persons and paying on St. Mich- 
ael's Day, the '29th of September, one shilling for 
every acre of land." 

On this plantation, close to the river shore, was 
erected about 1670, according to our local tradi- 
tion, the home of the planter, two rooms of which 
are still standing and in good preservation. Pos- 
sibly "Thomas Relfe, Gentleman," as he is styled 
in the Colonial Records, was the builder of this 
relic of bygone days, whose massive brick walls 
and stout timbers have for so long defied the on- 
slaughts of time. 



19 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Many are the stories, legendary and historical, 
that have gathered around this ancient building. 
Among the most interesting of the latter is that 
connected with the Culpeper Rebellion, an event 
as important in North Carolina history as Bacon's 
Rebellion is in the history of Virginia. 

The cause of Culpeper's Rebellion dates back 
to the passing of the navigation act by Cromwell's 
Parliament, when that vigorous ruler held sway 
in England and over the American colonies. This 
act, later broadened and amended, finally prohib- 
ited the colonists not only from importing goods 
from Europe unless they were shipped from Eng- 
land, but forbade the use of any but English ves- 
sels in the carrying trade; and finally declared 
that inter-colonial trade should cease, and that 
England alone should be the market for the buy- 
ing and selling of goods on the part of the Ameri- 
cans. Naturally the colonies objected to such a 
selfish restriction of their trade, and naturally 
there was much smuggling carried on, wherever 
and whenever this avoidance of the navigation 
acts could be made in safety. 

To none of these thirteen colonies were these 
laws more injurious than to the infant settlement 
on the northern shores of Albemarle Sound in 
Carolina. The sand bars along the coast pre- 
vented the establishment of a seaport from 



20 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

whence trade could be carried on with the mother 
country. The large, English-built vessels could 
not pass through the shallow inlets that connect 
the Atlantic with the Carolina inland waterways. 
To have strictly obeyed the laws passed by the 
British Parliament would have been the death 
blow to the commerce and to the prosperity of the 
Albemarle settlement. So, for about fifteen years 
after George Durant bought his tract of land on 
Durant's Neck from Kilcokonen, the great chief of 
the Yeopims, the planters in Albemarle had paid 
but little attention to the trade laws. The Pro- 
prietors appointed no customs collectors in the 
little colony, and had not considered it worth while 
to interfere with the trade which the shrewd New 
Englanders had built up in Carolina. 

Enterprising Yankee shipbuilders, realizing 
their opportunity, constructed staunch little ves- 
sels which could weather the seas, sail over to Eu- 
rope, load up with goods necessary to the planter, 
return and glide down the coast till they found an 
opening between the dreaded bars, then, slipping 
from sound to sound, carry to the planters in the 
Albemarle region the cargoes for which they were 
waiting. 

Another law requiring payment of an export 
tax on tobacco, then the principal crop of the Albe- 
marle sections, as it was of Virginia, was evaded 



21 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

for many years by the settlers in this region. 
Governors Drummond and Stevens, and John Jud- 
kins, president of the council, must have known of 
this disregard of the laws, both on the part of 
the Yankee shippers and the Albemarle planters. 
But realizing that too strict an adherence to Eng- 
land's trade laws would mean ruin to the colonists, 
these officers were conveniently blind to the illegal 
proceedings of their people. 

But after the organization of the board of trade 
in London, of which four of the Proprietors were 
members, the rulers of Carolina determined to 
enforce the laws more strictly among their sub- 
jects in far-away Carolina. So Timothy Biggs, of 
the Little River Settlement, was appointed sur- 
veyor of customs, and Valentine Byrd, of Pasquo- 
tank, collector of customs, with orders to enforce 
the navigation acts and other trade laws, so long 
disregarded. 

There was violent opposition to this decision of 
the Lords, as was to have been expected; but fin- 
ally the settlers were persuaded to allow the offi- 
cers to perform their duty. Valentine Byrd, him- 
self, one of the wealthiest and most influential men 
in Albemarle, was by no means rigid or exacting 
in collecting the tobacco tax ; and for several years 
longer, though the laws were ostensibly observed, 
numerous ways were found to evade them. The 



22 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

colonists, however, were by no means satisfied; 
for though they were successful in avoiding a 
strict adherence to the laws, and in continuing 
their trade with New England, still the fact that 
the hated acts were in force at all, was to them a 
thorn in the flesh. 

Matters soon reached a crisis, and the smould- 
ering feeling of resentment against the Proprie- 
tors broke out into open rebellion. In 1676 the 
Lords appointed Thomas Eastchurch Governor of 
Albemarle and Thomas Miller collector of customs 
for that settlement. Both of these men, who were 
then in London, had previously lived in Albemarle 
and had incurred the enmity of some of the lead- 
ing men in the settlement, Eastchurch especially 
being in bad repute among the planters. 

In 1677, Eastchurch and Miller departed from 
London to take up their duties in Carolina. Stop- 
ping at the Island of Nevis on their way over, 
Eastchurch became enamored of the charms 
(and the fortune) of a fair Creole who there 
abode, and dallied on the island until he succeeded 
in winning the lady's hand. Miller, whom East- 
church appointed his deputy in Carolina, con- 
tinued on his way alone. When he reached Albe- 
marle, the people received him kindly and allowed 
him to fill Eastchurch's place. But no sooner had 
he assumed the reins of government than he be- 



23 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

gan a rigid enforcement of the trade and naviga- 
tion laws. Of course the planters resented his 
activity in this direction, and most bitterly did 
they resent his compelling a strict payment of the 
tobacco tax. Possibly, however, no open rebellion 
would have occurred, had not Miller proceeded to 
high-handed and arbitrary deeds, making himself 
so obnoxious to the people that finally they were 
wrought up to such an inflammable state of mind 
that only a spark was needed to light the flames 
of revolution. 

And that spark was kindled in December, 1677, 
when Captain Zachary Gilliam, a shrewd New 
England shipmaster, came into the colony in his 
trig little vessel, "The Carolina," bringing with 
him, besides the supplies needed by the planters 
for the winter days at hand, ammunition and fire- 
arms which a threatened Indian uprising made 
necessary for the safety of the settlers' homes. 

On board the "Carolina" was George Durant, 
the first settler in the colony, and the acknowl- 
edged leader in public affairs in Albemarle. He 
had been over to England to consult the Lords 
Proprietors concerning matters relating to the 
colony, and was returning to his home on Durant's 
Neck. 

Through the inlet at Ocracoke the "Carolina" 
slipped, over the broad waters of Pamlico Sound, 



24 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

past Roanoke Island, home of Virginia Dare, and 
into Albemarle Sound. Then up the blue waters 
of the Pasquotank she sailed, with ''Jack ancient 
flag and pennant flying," as Miller indignantly 
relates, till she came to anchor at Captain Craw- 
ford's landing, just off the shore from Enfield 
Farm. 

Gladly did the bluff captain and the jovial plan- 
ter row ashore from their sea-tossed berths. 
Many were the friendly greetings extended them, 
both prime favorites among the settlers, who 
came hurrying down to Enfield when the news of 
the "Carolina's" arrival spread through the com- 
munity. Eager questions assailed them on every 
side concerning news of loved ones in the mother 
country; and a busy day did Captain Gilliam put 
in, chaffering and bargaining with the -planters 
who anxiously surrounded him in quest of long 
needed supplies. 

Durant, though doubtless impatient to proceed 
as quickly as possible to his home and family in 
Perquimans, nevertheless spent the day pleasantly 
enough talking to his brother planters, Valentine 
Byrd, Samuel Pricklove, and others. All was 
going merrily as a marriage bell when suddenly 
Deputy Governor Miller appeared on the scene, 
accused Gilliam of having contraband goods on 
board, and of having evaded the export tax on to- 



25 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

bacco when he sailed out of port with his cargo a 
year before. A violent altercation arose, in which 
the planters, with few exceptions, sided with Gil- 
liam, who indignantly (if not quite truthfully) de- 
nied the charges brought against him. 

Miller at last withdrew, muttering imprecations 
and threats against Gilliam; but about 10 o'clock 
that night he returned with several government 
officials, boarded the ''Carolina'' and attempted to 
arrest both Gilliam and Durant. The planters, 
among whom were Valentine Byrd, Captain Craw- 
ford, Captain Jenkins and John Culpeper, hear- 
ing of the disturbance, anxious for the safety of 
their friends, and fearing lest Gilliam should sail 
away before they had concluded their purchases, 
came hurrying in hot haste to the rescue. Rowing 
swiftly out to the little vessel, they quickly turned 
the tables on the Governor and his officials ; and to 
their indignant surprise. Miller and his men 
found themselves prisoners in the hands of the 
rebels. Then the insurgents, with John Culpeper, 
now the acknowledged leader of the revolt, at 
their head, rowed ashore to the landing with their 
captives ; and in the old house at Enfield, on a bluff 
near the bank of the river — so goes our local tra- 
dition — the angry and astonished Governor was 
imprisoned. 

Then the revolutionists proceeded to "Little 



26 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

River Poynte/' probably the settlement which 
afterwards grew into the town of Nixonton, and 
seized Timothy Biggs, the surveyor and deputy 
collector of customs, who had been wringing the 
tobacco tax from the farmers. Then breaking 
open the chests and the locks, they found and took 
possession of Miller's commission as collector of 
customs and returned to Enfield, where they 
locked Biggs up with Miller in Captain Craw- 
ford's house. 

For two weeks the deputy governor and the 
deputy collector were kept close prisoners at En- 
field. The revolutionists in the meanwhile drew 
up a document known as ''The Remonstrance of 
the Inhabitants of Pasquotank," in which they 
stated the grievances that had led them to take 
this high-handed manner of circumventing Miller 
and Biggs in their tyrannical proceedings. This 
"remonstrance" was sent to the precincts of Cur- 
rituck, Perquimans and Chowan ; and the planters, 
following the example of their neighbors in Pas- 
quotank, rose in insurrection against the other 
collectors of the hated customs and export tax, 
and arrested and deposed the collectors. 

At the end of a fortnight, the insurgents decided 
to take Miller and Biggs to George Durant's home 
in Durant's Neck. So the prisoners were taken on 
board one of the planter's vessels ; and down the 



27 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Pasquotank, into the sound, and a short distance 
up Little River, the rebels sailed, accompanied by 
several vessels filled with armed men. As they 
passed the ''Carolina," that saucy little ship, which 
as Miller afterwards indignantly reported to the 
Lords Proprietors, "had in all these confusions 
rid with Jack Ensign Flag and Pennon flying," 
just off the shore from Enfield, saluted Culpeper, 
Durant and their companions by firing three of 
her guns. 

Arrived at Durant's home, where some seventy 
prominent men of the colony had assembled, the 
revolutionists proceeded to establish a govern- 
ment of their own. John Jenkins was appointed 
governor, an assembly of eighteen men was 
elected, and a court convened before which Miller 
and Biggs were brought for trial on a charge of 
treason. But before the trial was ended. Governor 
Eastchurch, who had arrived in Virginia while 
these affairs were taking place, sent a proclama- 
tion to the insurgents commanding them to dis- 
perse and return to their homes. This the bold 
planters refused to do, and in further defiance of 
Eastchurch, the new officials sent an armed force 
to prevent his coming into the colony. 

Eastchurch appealed to Virginia to help him 
establish his authority in Carolina; but while he 
was collecting forces for this purpose he fell ill 



28 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

and died. Durant, Culpeper, Byrd and their com- 
rades were now masters in Albemarle. 

The interrupted trials were never completed. 
Biggs managed to escape and made his way to 
England. Miller was kept a prisoner for two 
years in a little log cabin built for the purpose at 
the upper end of Pasquotank, near where the old 
brick house now stands. In two years' time Miller 
also contrived to escape, and found his way back 
to the mother country. 

For ten years the Albemarle colony prospered 
under the wise and prudent management of the 
officers, whom the people had put in charge of 
affairs without leave or license from lord or king. 
But finally Culpeper and Durant decided of their 
own accord to give up their authority and restore 
the management of affairs to the Proprietors. An 
amicable settlement was arranged with these own- 
ers of Albemarle, who, realizing the wrongs the 
settlers had suffered at the hands of Miller and his 
associates, made no attempt to punish the leaders 
of the rebellion. John Harvey was quietly in- 
stalled as temporary governor until Seth Sothel, 
one of the Proprietors, should come to take up the 
reins of government himself. 

So at Enfield Farm, now the property of one of 
Pasquotank's most successful farmers and busi- 
ness men, Mr. Jeptha Winslow, began a disturb- 



29 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

ance which culminated a hundred years later in 
the Revolutionary War ; and here, in embryo form, 
in 1677, was the beginning of our republic — "a 
government of the people, for the people, by the 
people." 



30 



CHAPTER IV 

THE HECKLEFIELD FARM 

OF THE old Hecklefield house on Little River 
in Perquimans County, mentioned so often 
in the Colonial Records as the place of 
meeting for the Governor's Council, the General 
Court, and on one notable occasion, as the legis- 
lative hall of the Grand Assembly of Albemarle, 
not one stick or stone is left standing to-day. Only 
a few bricks where the great chimney once stood 
now remain, to suggest to the imagination the hos- 
pitable hearth around whose blazing logs the Gov- 
ernor and his colleagues, the Chief Justice and his 
associates, and the Speaker of the Assembly and 
his fellow representatives used to gather, when 
the old home was the scene of the public meetings 
of the Albemarle Colony. 

The Hecklefield home was located on Durant's 
Neck on the plantation adjoining the tract of land 
purchased by George Durant from Kilcokonen, 
the great chief of the Yeopims. Though no one 
now living remembers the ancient building, yet 
the residents of Durant's Neck to-day, many of 
whom are the descendants of the early settlers in 
that region, confidently point out the site of Cap- 
tain Hecklefield's house, and with one accord agree 



31 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

to its location, "about three hundred yards to the 
north of the main Durant's Neck road, at the foot 
of the late Calvin Humphries' Lane." 

An old sycamore tree, whose great girth gives 
evidence of the centuries it has seen, stands by the 
side of the road at the entrance to the lane. Its 
mottled trunk and wide spreading branches are 
one of the landmarks of the region. And beneath 
its sheltering boughs, Durant and Catchmaid, 
Pricklove and Governor Drummond himself, who, 
tradition claims, was one of the residents of Du- 
rant's Neck, may often have met to talk over the 
affairs of the infant settlement. Governor Hyde 
and Chief Justice Gale have doubtless often hailed 
with relief the glistening white branches and 
broad green leaves of the old tree, whose outlines 
had grown familiar through many a journey to 
Hecklefield's home on business of state. 

No description of the house is now extant. But 
that the building must have been, for those days, 
large and commodious, is evident from the fact 
that so often beneath its roof the leading men of 
the colony gathered to transact affairs of public 
interest. On no less than twenty occasions did 
executive, judicial and legislative officers assemble 
at Captain Hecklefield's to perform their various 
duties. That a private home was chosen as the 
scene of these gatherings arose from the fact that 



32 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

for over forty years after the first recorded settle- 
ment in North Carolina, no town had been 
founded within her borders. Therefore no public 
building of any kind, court-house or capitol, had 
been erected, and the Council, the Assembly and 
the Court were held at the homes of those planters, 
whose houses were large enough to accommodate 
such assemblies. 

Local tradition tells us that the first court ever 
held in our State was convened under a great 
beech still standing on Flatty Creek, an arm of 
the broad Pasquotank, in Pasquotank County. 
But no records of this court can be found, nor does 
tradition tell whether the judge and advocates, 
plaintiffs and defendants, witnesses and jury as- 
sembled beneath the branches of that ancient tree, 
still strong and sturdy, came in answer to the call 
for the Palatine Court, the General Court, or the 
more frequently assembled Precinct Court. 

The first Albemarle Assembly in 1665, was also 
held out in the open, the verdant foliage of an- 
other historic tree for roof, the soft moss for car- 
pet. But by 1670 the homes of the planters were 
being built of sufficient size to accommodate these 
public meetings ; and from that time until Edenton 
was founded and became the seat of government, 
we find these private homes being used for public 
gatherings. 



33 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Of Captain John Hecklefield himself, though his 
name appear? very frequently in the Colonial 
Records from 1702 until 1717, but little is known. 
Of his ancestry nothing can be ascertained, nor do 
we know how or when he came into Albemarle. 
It is not even certain that he owned the home 
assigned as his, for no record of lands bought by 
him can be found in the records of Perquimans 
County. But that he must have been a man of high 
social standing and of great weight in the com- 
munity is evident from the fact that he was a 
deputy of the Lords Proprietors, and thus became 
ex officio one of the seven Associate Justices of the 
General Court. The fact also that his home was 
so often selected for the meeting of the General 
Court, a body which in colonial days corresponded 
very closely to our modern Supreme Court; that 
the Governor's Council of which he, as a deputy 
for one of the Lords, was a member, and, that on 
one occasion, the Albemarle Assembly was called 
to meet at his home, fixes his standing in the com- 
munity. 

The first mention made of Captain Hecklefield 
is found in Vol. I of the Colonial Records, where 
the following notice is inscribed: "At a General 
Court held at ye house of Captain John Hecklefield 
in Little River, Oct. 27, 1702. Being present the 



34 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Hon. Samuel Swann, Esq., the Hon. William Glo- 
ver, Esq., Jno. Hawkins, Esq." 

From that day until 1717, we find many in- 
stances of these public gatherings at Captain 
Hecklefield's home. The most prominent men in 
the Albemarle Colony were often there assembled. 
To the sessions of the General Court came Edward 
Moseley, the Justice of the Court, leader of the 
Gary faction in the Glover-Cary disturbance of 
1708, Chief Commissioner for North Carolina 
when the boundary line between Virginia and 
Carolina was established. Speaker of the Assembly 
for four years, master of plantations and many 
slaves, and withal a very courteous gentleman 
and learned scholar. Christopher Gale, first judi- 
cial officer in Carolina to receive the commission 
as Chief Justice, in wig and silken gown, upheld 
the majesty of the law at the sessions of the 
General Court, assisted by his confreres, John 
Porter, Thoi|ias Symonds, and John Blount. 

At the first CounciT held at Captain Heckle- 
field's, July 4, 1712, we find among the dignitaries 
assembled on that occasion, Edward Hyde, first 
Governor of North Carolina, as separate and dis- 
tinct from South Carolina, and first cousin of 
Queen Anne. This lordly gentleman commanded 
"most awful respect," and doubtless received it 
from planter and farmer. With him came Thomas 



35 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Pollock, leader of the Glover faction, owner of 
55,000 acres of land, numerous flocks of sheep 
and herds of cattle and of many vessels trading 
with the New England and West Indian ports, a 
merchant prince of colonial days, and destined to 
become twice acting Governor of North Carolina. 

Some years later, at a meeting of the Council in 
April, 1714, Charles Eden, lately appointed by the 
Proprietors to succeed Hyde, who had died of yel- 
low fever during the trouble with the Tuscaroras, 
took the oath of office at Captain Hecklefield's 
home, and became Governor of North Carolina. 
Among the members of the Council present on this 
occasion were Colonel Thomas Byrd, Nathan Che- 
vin, and William Reed, all prominent men in Pas- 
quotank, and the two former, leading churchmen 
of that county, and active members of the vestry 
of St. John's Parish. Tobias Knight was also there, 
a wealthy resident of Bath then, though he too had 
formerly lived in Pasquotank. Knight was later 
to win notoriety as a friend and colleague of 
Teach, the pirate. And Governor Eden himself 
was later accused of collusion with Blackbeard, 
though no sufficient proof could be found to bring 
him to trial. 

By what means of locomotion these high digni- 
taries of the colony found their way to Durant's 
Neck, we can only conjecture. Possibly a coach 



36 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

and four may have borne Governor Eden and Gov- 
ernor Hyde the long journey from Chowan and 
Bath to Hecklefield's door. Possibly Judge and 
advocate, members of the Assembly and coun- 
cilors, preferred to make the trip on horseback, 
breaking the journey by frequent stops at the 
homes of the planters in the districts through 
which they traveled, meeting along the road 
friends and acquaintances bound on the same 
errand to the same destination. And as the caval- 
cade increased in numbers as it drew nearer the 
end of the journey, doubtless the hilarity of the 
travelers increased ; and by the time the old syca- 
more was sighted, it was a gay, though weary, pro- 
cession that turned into the lane and passed be- 
neath its branches, down to where the old house 
stood near the banks of the river. 

More probably, however, the members of Coun- 
cil, Court or Assembly, met at some wharf in 
their various precincts, and embarking on the 
swift sloops of the great planter, made the trip to 
Durant's Neck by water. Down the Pamlico, Cho- 
wan, Perquimans and Pasquotank the white-sailed 
vessels bore their passengers into Albemarle 
Sound and a short distance up Little River; then 
disembarking at the Hecklefield Landing, where 
the hospitable host of the occasion was doubtless 
waiting to receive the travelers, they made their 



37 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

way with many a friendly interchange of gossip 
and jest to the great house, standing back from 
the river beneath the arching branches of the 
sheltering sycamores. 

One of the most interesting and important of 
all the public gatherings convened at the Heckle- 
field home was the meeting of the Assembly on 
October 11, 1708, to decide which of the two claim- 
ants of the office of President of the Council, or 
Deputy Governor of North Carolina, should have 
just right to that office. The two rival claimants 
were Thomas Cary, of the precinct of Pamlico, 
and William Glover, of Pasquotank. To under- 
stand the situation which necessitated the calling 
of a special session of the Assembly to settle the 
dispute between the two men, it may be well 
to review the events leading up to this meeting. 

In 1704, when Queen Anne came to the throne 
of England, Parliament passed an act requiring 
all public officers to take an oath of allegiance to 
the new sovereign. The Quakers in Carolina, who 
in the early days of the colony were more numer- 
ous than any other religious body in Albemarle, 
had hitherto been exempt from taking an oath 
when they qualified for office. Holding religiously 
by the New Testament mandate, "Swear not at 
all," they claimed, and were allowed the privilege, 
of making a declaration of like tenor as the oath, 



38 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

substituting for the words, ''I swear" the expres- 
sion, to them equally binding, "I affirm." 

But when Governor Henderson Walker died, Sir 
Nathaniel Johnson, then Governor of North and 
South Carolina, sent Major Robert Daniel from 
South Carolina to take Walker's place as Deputy 
Governor of the Northern Colony. 

Daniel was an ardent member of the Church of 
England, and was strongly desirous of establish- 
ing this church in Carolina by law. But he knew 
that so long as the Quakers were members of the 
Assembly, and held high office in Albemarle, this 
law could never be passed. Therefore he deter- 
mined to demand a strict oath of office from all 
who were elected to fill public positions. This de- 
termination was carried out. The Quakers were 
driven from the Assembly, which body, subser- 
vient to the new Governor, passed the law estab- 
lishing the Church of England in Albemarle. 

But the Quakers did not submit tamely to this 
deprivation of their ancient rights and privileges. 
Many of the most influential men in the colony, 
especially in Pasquotank and Perquimans, were 
Friends; and they determined to appeal to the 
Proprietors to uphold them in their claim to a 
share in the government. The Dissenters in the 
colony joined with them in their plea, and the 
result was that Governor Daniel was removed 



39 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

from office, and Governor Johnson ordered by the 
Lords to appoint another deputy for the Northern 
Colony. Thomas Cary, of South Carolina, re- 
ceived the appointment and came into Albemarle 
to take up the reins of government. But lo, and 
behold! no sooner was he installed in office than 
he, too, like Daniel, made it known that he would 
allow no one to hold office who refused to be sworn 
in, in the manner prescribed by Parliament. 

Quakers and Dissenters again banded together, 
this time to have Cary deposed ; and John Porter 
hastened to England to state their grievances to 
the Lords. Porter also petitioned in behalf of the 
Quakers and their supporters, that the law requir- 
ing the oaths should be set aside ; and also that the 
colony should be allowed to choose its own Gover- 
nor from its own Council. 

The Lords again listened favorably to the peti- 
tioners, and Porter returned to Carolina, bringing 
with him a written agreement to the petition. 
Cary, during Porter's absence, had left the colony, 
and William Glover, of Pasquotank, was admin- 
istering the government. On Porter's return, 
Glover was allowed to retain the office; but later, 
to the surprise and disappointment of Friend and 
Dissenter, he, too, decided to refuse to admit to 
office any who refused to take the hated oaths. 



40 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Gary returned at this juncture and demanded to 
be reinstated as Deputy Governor; and Porter 
and other former supporters of Glover now went 
to his side. A new Gouncil was chosen, and Gary 
made its president, on condition, as we infer, that 
he carry out the will of the Proprietors as ex- 
pressed in the commission given to Porter. 

But Glover was by no means disposed to sur- 
render his office tamely to Gary, and still claimed 
the authority with which he had been invested. 
Many prominent citizens supported him in his 
claim, Thomas Pollock, one of the most influential 
of the planters, being his warmest adherent. So 
now there were two governments in the colony, 
each claiming to be the only right and lawful one. 
Disputes over the matter grew so numerous and 
violent that finally the two factions agreed to leave 
the decision of the matter to a new Assembly 
which was elected at this juncture. And this was 
the Assembly that convened at Gaptain Heckle- 
field's in 1708. 

Edward Moseley was elected Speaker; the rival 
claims of the two governors duly and hotly de- 
bated; and the result was, that Gary's friends 
being in the majority, that worthy was declared 
to be the true and lawful ruler of the colony. 
Glover, Pollock and Ghristopher Gale, disgusted 



41 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

with the turn affairs had taken, left Carolina and 
went to Virginia, where they remained for two 
years, at the end of which time Edward Hyde, the 
Queen's first cousin, was appointed Governor of 
North Carolina, and these malcontents returned 
to their homes in Albemarle. 

And how did Madam Hecklefield manage to pro- 
vide for the numerous guests who so often met 
around her fireside ? The housewife to-day would 
rebel at such frequent invasions of the privacy of 
her home: and the high price of living would in- 
deed prohibit such wholesale entertainment of the 
public ; but in those good old days living was easy. 
The waters of Little River and Albemarle Sound 
teemed with fish ; the woods were full of deer and 
other wild game ; the fields were musical with the 
clear call of the quail ; slaves were ready to do the 
bidding of the lady of the manor ; wood was plen- 
tiful for the big fire-places, and candles easily 
moulded for the lighting of the rooms. No one in 
those days was used to the modern luxury of a 
private room and bath; and the guests doubtless 
shared in twos and threes and fours the rooms 
placed at their disposal. So, Madam Hecklefield, 
with a mind at ease from domestic cares, was able 
to greet her guests with unruffled brow. 

The neighboring planters doubtless came to the 



42 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

rescue, and helped to provide bed and board for 
the gentry whom Captain Hecklefield could not 
accommodate ; and the lesser fry found the humb- 
ler settlers on the ''Neck" no less hospitable in 
opening their doors to them, though very probably 
good coin of the realm often settled the debt be- 
tween guest and host. 

After the meeting of the Assembly of 1708, va- 
rious other public gatherings took place at the 
Hecklefield home, until November 22, 1717. On 
this occasion the colony was formally notified of 
the death of Queen Anne, and George I was pro- 
claimed the ''Liege Lord of Carolina." 

At this meeting Governor Charles Eden was 
present, and serving with him were the Honorable 
Thomas Byrd, and Nathaniel Chevin, of Pasquo- 
tank, and Christopher Gale and Francis Foster, all 
deputies of the Proprietors. 

This being the first recorded occasion in North 
Carolina of a proclamation announcing the death 
of one sovereign and ascension to the throne of 
another, the quaint phraseology of the original 
document may be of more interest than a modern 
version of its contents: 

"Whereas we have received Certain Informa- 
tion from Virginia of the death of our late Sov- 
ereign Lady, Queen Anne, of Blessed Memory by 



43 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

whose death the Imperial Crownes of Greate 
Brittaine ffrance and Ireland are Solely and 
Rightfully Come to the High and Mighty Prince 
George Elector of Brunswick Luenburg — 

*'Wee therefore doe by this our proclamation 
with one full voice and Consent of Heart and 
Tongue Publish and proclaim that the High and 
Mighty Prince George Elector of Brunswick Luen- 
burg is now by the death of our late Sovereigne 
of happy memory become our Lawful and rightful 
Leighe Lord George by the grace of God King of 
Greate Brittaine ffrance and Ireland, Defender of 
the Faith etc., To whom wee doe all hearty and 
humble affection. Beseeching Obedience with 
long and happy Years to raigne over us. Given 
etc., the 16th Day of November, 1714." 

This proclamation having been duly read, the 
Governor and his Council proceeded to subscribe 
to the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign, as 
did Tobias Knight, collector of customs, from Cur- 
rituck, and other public officers present. 

This meeting, with one exception, a Council held 
in 1717, is the last recorded as occurring at the 
Hecklefield home. Edenton, founded in 1715, be- 
came the seat of government for a number of 
years, and meetings affecting the affairs of the 
colony were for the most part held there in the 
court-house built soon after. 



44 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Captain John Hecklefield's house on Little River 
now disappears from history; but though no 
longer the scene of the public activities of Albe- 
marle, it doubtless kept up for many years its 
reputation as the center of all that was best in the 
social life of the colony. 



45 



CHAPTER V 

COLONIAL DAYS IN CHURCH AND SCHOOL ON 
LITTLE RIVER, PASQUOTANK COUNTY 

AMONG the many wide and beautiful rivers 
that drain the fertile lands of ancient Al- 
bemarle, none is more full of historic in- 
terest than the lovely stream known as Little 
River, the boundary set by nature to divide Pas- 
quotank County on the east from her sister county, 
Perquimans, on the west. 

On the shores of this stream, "little," as com- 
pared with the other rivers of Albemarle, but of 
noble proportions when contrasted with some of 
the so-called rivers of our western counties, the 
history of North Carolina as an organized govern- 
ment had its beginning. 

As early as 1659 settlers began moving down 
into the Albemarle region from Virginia, among 
them being George Durant, who spent two years 
searching for a suitable spot to locate a planta- 
tion, finally deciding upon a fertile, pleasant land 
lying between Perquimans River on the west, and 
Little River on the east. Following Durant came 
George Catchmaid, John Harvey, John Battle, Dr. 
Thomas Relfe and other gentlemen, who settled on 
Pasquotank, Perquimans and Little rivers, buying 



46 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

their lands from the Indians; and later, when 
Charles II included the Albemarle region in the 
grant to the Lords Proprietors, taking out patents 
for their estates from these new owners of the 
soil, paying the usual quit-rents for the same. 

John Jenkins, Valentine Byrd, and other 
wealthy men came later into this newly settled 
region, and by 1663 the Albemarle region was a 
settlement of importance, and Governor Berkeley, 
of Virginia, one of the Lords Proprietors, had, 
with the concurrence of his partners in this new 
land, sent William Drummond to govern the 
colony ; and the Grand Assembly of Albemarle had 
held its first session at Hall's Creek, an arm of 
Little River, in Pasquotank County. 

In 1664, when the Clarendon colony was broken 
up, many of the settlers from the Cape Fear 
region came into Albemarle; and in 1666 this sec- 
tion received a fresh influx of immigrants from 
the West Indies, many of whom settled upon Little 
River and embarked upon the then lucrative trade 
of ship-building. The usual natural advantages 
of the section made it in many respects a desirable 
land for the new comers. Still there were many 
drawbacks to the well being of the settlers, among 
the most serious of which was the lack of the two 
factors which make for the true progress of a 
country, educational and religious facilities and 
privileges. 

47 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Carolina was settled in a very different manner 
from most of her sisters among the thirteen colo- 
nies. To those regions settlers came in groups, 
often a whole community migrating to the new 
land, taking with them ministers, priests and 
teachers ; and wherever they settled, however wild 
and desolate the land, they had with them those 
two mainstays of civilization. 

But into the Albemarle colony the settlers came 
a family at a time ; and instead of towns and town 
governments being organized, the well-to-do set- 
tlers with their families and servants established 
themselves upon large plantations, building their 
homes far apart, and devoting their time to agri- 
cultural pursuits. 

So it is not surprising that for many years the 
only religious exercises in which the Carolina set- 
tler could take part were such as he held in his 
own home, the members of the Church of England 
reading the prayers and service of the Book of 
Common Prayer, the Dissenter using such service 
as appealed most to him. 

As for the education of the children, the wealthy 
planter would often engage in his service some 
indentured servant, often a man of learning, who 
would gladly give his services for a number of 
years for the opportunity of coming to this new 
Land of Promise. And in later years as the boys 



48 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

of the family outgrew the home tutor, they were 
sent to the mother country to finish their educa- 
tion at Oxford or Cambridge. 

But the poor colonist had none of these means 
of giving his children an education ; and for many 
years, indeed, not until 1705, we can find no men- 
tion of any attempt on the part of the settlers to 
provide a school for the children of the poor. 

But about twelve years after George Durant set- 
tled on Little River, the religious condition of Albe- 
marle began to improve. In the spring of that 
year, William Edmundson, a faithful friend and 
follower of George Fox, the founder of the Quaker 
Church, came into Albemarle and held the first 
public religious service ever heard in the colony 
at the house of Henry Phelps, who lived in Per- 
quimans County, near where the old town of Hert- 
ford now stands. From there he went into Pas- 
quotank, where he was gladly received and grate- 
fully heard. The following fall George Fox came 
into the two counties himself, preached to the 
people and made a number of converts to the 
Quaker doctrine. 

This religious body grew in numbers and influ- 
ence, and according to the Colonial Records, "At a 
monthly meeting held at Caleb Bundy's house in 
1703, it is agreed by Friends that a meeting-house 
be built at Pasquotank with as much speed as may 



49 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

be." And later, between 1703 and 1706, this plan 
was carried out, and on the banks of Symons 
Creek, an arm of Little River, between the two 
ancient settlements of Nixonton and Newbegun 
Creek, the first Quaker meeting-house (and with 
the exception of the old church in Chowan built 
by members of the Church of England), the first 
house of worship in the State, was built. 

Rough and crude was this house of God, simple 
and plain the large majority of the men and 
women who gathered there to worship in their 
quiet, undemonstrative way the Power who had 
led them to this land of freedom. But the Word 
preached to these silent listeners in that rude 
building inspired within them those principles 
upon which the foundation of the best citizenship 
of our State was laid. 

The Church of England, though long neglectful 
of her children in this distant colony, had by this 
time begun to waken to her duty towards the 
sheep of her fold in Carolina. Somewhere about 
1700 a missionary society sent a clergyman to the 
settlement, and in 1708 the Rev. Mr. Ackers writes 
to Her Majesty's Secretary in London that "The 
Citizens of Pasquotank have agreed to build a 
church and two chapels." As to the location of 
these edifices, history remains silent ; but that the 
church had been sowing good seed in this new and 



50 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

fertile soil is shown by the account given by the 
Rev. Mr. Adams of the people of Pasquotank, to 
v^hom he had been sent as rector of the parish in 
that county. 

According to the letter written by Mr. Adams 
to Her Majesty's Secretary, there had come into 
the county with the settlers from the West Indies 
a learned, public-spirited layman named Charles 
Griffin, who, seeing the crying need of the people, 
had established by 1705 a school on Symons Creek, 
for the children of the settlers near by. 

Being a loyal son of the Church of England, he 
insisted upon reading the morning and evening 
service of that church daily in his school, and he 
required his young charges to join in the prayers 
and make the proper responses. So faithful and 
efficient a teacher did he prove that even the 
Quakers who had suffered many things from the 
Church of England, as well as from their dissent- 
ing brethren, were glad to send their children to 
his school. 

The Colonial Records contain many references 
to the wide and beneficent influence exerted by 
Mr. Griffin while acting in his two-fold capacity 
of teacher and lay-reader in Pasquotank. 

Governor Glover in a letter to the Bishop of 
London in 1708 writes : "In Pasquotank an orderly 
congregation has been kept together by the in- 



51 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

dustry of a young gentleman whom the parish has 
employed to read the services of the Church of 
England. This gentleman being a man of un- 
blemished life, by his decent behavior in that office, 
and by apt discourses from house to house, not 
only kept those he found, but gained many to the 
church/* 

Again and again in the pages of the Colonial 
Records, Vol. I, are the praises of Charles Griffin 
sung ; though, sad to say, in the latter days of his 
life he seems to have fallen from grace, and to 
have become involved in some scandal, the par- 
ticulars of which are not given. This scandal 
must have been proved unfounded, or he lived it 
down ; for we hear of him in after years as a pro- 
fessor in William and Mary College. 

History contains no record of the location of 
Charles Griffin's school, but according to tradition, 
and to the old inhabitants of that section, it was 
located on Symons Creek, not far from the ancient 
Quaker meeting-house. This latter building, 
erected somewhere between 1703 and 1706, was 
standing, within the memory of many among the 
older citizens of our county, some of whom retain 
vivid recollections of attending, when they were 
children, the services held by the Friends in this 
house of worship. 

It may be of interest here to mention that the 



52 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

heirs of the late Elihu White, of Belvidere, to 
whom the property belonged, have lately donated 
the site of the meeting-house on Symons Creek to 
the Quakers of that section, of whom there are 
still quite a number. And once again, after a 
lapse of many years, will the ancient worship be 
resumed on the shores of that quiet stream. 

To the pioneer settlers on Little River, then, be- 
longs the honor of starting the wheels of govern- 
ment at Hall's Creek, of erecting on Symons Creek 
the second house of worship in the State, and of 
establishing on that same tributary of Little 
River the first school in North Carolina. 



53 



CHAPTER VI 

THE HAUNTS OF BLACKBEARD 

THE NAME of the famous pirate, Teach, or 
Blackbeard, as he was familiarly known, 
plays a conspicuous part in the early his- 
tory of North Carolina, and survives in many 
local traditions on our coast. 

Many spots along our sounds and rivers have 
been honey-combed by diggers after the pirate's 
buried hoard. Tradition says that it was the 
gruesome custom of those fierce sea robbers to 
bury the murdered body of one of their own band 
beside the stolen gold, that his restless spirit might 
"walk" as the guardian of the spot. And weird 
tales are still told of treasure seekers who, search- 
ing the hidden riches of Teach and his band, on 
lonely islands and in tangled swamps along our 
eastern waterways, have been startled at their 
midnight task by strange sights and sounds, weird 
shapes and balls of fire, which sent the rash in- 
truder fleeing in terror from the haunted spot. 

Hardly a river that flows into our eastern 
sounds but claims to have once borne on its bosom 
the dreaded "Adventure,'* Blackbeard's pirate 
craft ; hardly a settlement along those streams but 
retains traditions of the days when the black flag 



54 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

of that dreaded ship could be seen streaming in 
the breeze as the swift sails sped the pirates by, on 
murder and on plunder bent. Up Little River 
that flows by George Durant's home down to the 
broad waters of Albemarle Sound, Teach and his 
drunken crew would come, seeking refuge after 
some bold marauding expedition, in the hidden 
arms of that lovely stream. Up the beautiful Pas- 
quotank, into the quiet waters of Symons Creek 
and Newbegun Creek, the dreaded bark would 
speed, and the settlers along those ancient streams 
would quake and tremble at the sound of the loud 
carousing, the curses and shouts that made hid- 
eous the night. 

On all these waters "Teach's Light" is still said 
to shed a ghostly gleam on dark, winter nights; 
and where its rays are seen to rest, there, so the 
credulous believe, his red gold still hides, deep 
down in the waters or buried along the shore. 

A few miles down the Pasquotank from Eliza- 
beth City, North Carolina, there stands near the 
river shore a quaint old building known as 'The 
Old Brick House," which is said to have been one 
of the many widely scattered haunts of Black- 
beard. A small slab of granite, circular in shape, 
possibly an old mill wheel, is sunken in the ground 
at the foot of the steps and bears the date of 
1709, and the initials "E. T." 



55 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

The ends of the house are of mingled brick and 
stone, the main body of wood. The wide entrance 
hall, paneled to the ceiling, opens into a large 
room, also paneled, in which is a wide fireplace 
with a richly carved mantel reaching to the ceil- 
ing. On each side of this mantel there is a closet 
let into the wall, one of which communicates by a 
secret door with the large basement room below. 
Tradition says that from this room a secret pas- 
sage led to the river ; that here the pirate confined 
his captives, and that certain ineffaceable stains 
upon the floor in the room above, hint of dark 
deeds, whose secret was known only to the under- 
ground tunnel and the unrevealing waters below. 

Standing on a low cliff overlooking the Pasquo- 
tank, whose amber waters come winding down 
from the great Dismal Swamp some ten miles 
away, the old house commands a good view of the 
river, which makes a wide bend just where the 
ancient edifice stands. And a better spot the pirate 
could not have found to keep a lookout for the 
avenging ship that should track him to his hiding 
place. And should a strange sail heave in sight, 
or one which he might have cause to fear was 
bringing an enemy to his door, quickly to the 
secret closet near the great mantel in the banquet 
hall would Blackbeard slip, drop quietly down to 
the basement room beneath, bending low, rush 



56 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

swiftly through the underground tunnel, slip into 
the waiting sloop and be off and away up the river 
or down, whichever was safest, out of reach of the 
enemy. 

But though many of the streams and towns in 
the Albemarle region retain these traditions of 
Blackbeard, in little Bath, the oldest town in 
North Carolina, can the greatest number of these 
tales be heard ; and with good reason, for here in 
this historic village, the freebooter made his home 
for a month or so after he had availed himself of 
the king's offer of pardon to the pirates who would 
surrender themselves and promise to give over 
their evil mode of life. 

' This ancient village, founded in 1705, is situated 
on Bath Creek, by which modest name the broad, 
beautiful body of water, beside which those early 
settlers built their homes, is called. The banks of 
the creek are high and thickly wooded, rising 
boldly from the water, in striking contrast with 
the low, marshy shores of most of our eastern 
rivers. 

Near the shores of the creek, just outside the 
town, there is still to be seen a round brick struc- 
ture resembling a huge oven, called Teach's Kettle, 
in which the pirate is said to have boiled the tar 
with which to calk his vessels. Across the creek 
from the town are the ruins of "the Governor's 



57 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Mansion," where, it is claimed, Governor Eden 
died. In an old field a short distance from the 
mansion is a deep depression filled with broken 
bricks, which was the governor's wine cellar. 
Nearly on a line with this, at the water's edge, is 
shown the opening of a brick tunnel, through 
which the Pirate Teach is said to have conveyed 
his stolen goods into the governor's wine cellar for 
safe keeping. That Governor Eden, for reasons 
best known to himself, winked at the pirate's free- 
booting expeditions, and that there was undoubt- 
edly some collusion between Blackbeard and the 
chief magistrate of the State, was generally be- 
lieved; though Eden vehemently denied all part- 
nership with the freebooter. 

To the latter class of narrative the following 
thrilling tale, which combines very ingeniously the 
various points of historic interest in Bath, must, 
it is to be feared, belong. The story goes that 
Blackbeard, with the consent of her father, was 
suing for the hand of Governor Eden's daughter. 
The young lady, for the excellent reason that she 
preferred another and better man, declined abso- 
lutely to become the pirate's bride. 

Finally, in a desperate attempt to elude his 
pursuit. Miss Eden bribed two of her father's 
slaves to row her across the creek in the dead of 
the night to Bath. Here she took refuge in the 



58 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

"Old Marsh House" with her friend, Mrs. Palmer, 
whose memorial tablet is now in St. Thomas 
Church at Bath, the oldest house of worship in 
the State. 

Teach, infuriated at the lady's continued rejec- 
tion of his suit, put out to sea on one of his pirati- 
cal excursions. The prize he captured on this 
occasion was Miss Eden's lover, his hated rival. 
The story goes that Blackbeard cut off one of the 
hands of the unfortunate captive, threw his body 
into the sea, and enclosing the gruesome relic in 
a silver casket, as if it were some costly gift, sent 
it with many compliments to his lady love. When 
the unfortunate maiden opened the casket and saw 
the ghastly object she uttered a terrible shriek 
and swooned from horror; then, as was the fash- 
ion in the old romances, pined slowly away and 
died of a broken heart. 

Now, at first blush, it seems that this interest- 
ing tale has enough corroborating evidences of its 
veracity to pass down to the coming ages as true 
history. A visitor to Bath can see for himself 
every one of the places mentioned in the story. 
The tablet in old St. Thomas Church testifies in 
many a high-sounding phrase the many virtues 
of Miss Eden's friend, Mrs. Margaret Palmer; and 
the "Old Marsh House" is still standing, a well 
preserved and fascinating relic of the past, where 



59 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

the above lady is said to have sheltered her friend. 
We speak of facts as hard and stubborn things, 
but dates are as the nether millstone for hard- 
ness. And here are the rocks on which our lovely 
story shatters : Teach was captured and beheaded 
in 1718 ; Mrs. Palmer's tablet reports her to have 
been born in 1721, and the Marsh House was not 
built until 1744. The story is a beautiful instance 
of the way in which legends are made. 

After so much that is traditional, a brief sketch 
of the pirate's life may not be amiss. According 
to Francis Xavier Martin's History of North 
Carolina, Edward Teach was bom in Bristol, 
England. While quite young he took service on 
a privateer and fought many years for king and 
country with great boldness. In* 1796 he joined 
one Horngold, one of a band of pirates who had 
their rendezvous in the Bahamas, taking refuge 
when pursued, in the sounds and rivers of North 
Carolina. 

On his first cruise with the pirate, Teach cap- 
tured a sloop, of which Horngold gave him the 
command. He put forty guns on board, named 
the vessel "Queen Anne's Revenge," and started 
on a voyage to South America. Here Teach re- 
ceived news of the king's proclamation of pardon 
for all pirates who would surrender themselves. 
So, having collected much plunder, and wishing to 



60 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

secure it, he came to North Carolina. With twenty 
of his men he proceeded to Governor Eden's house, 
surrendered himself and received the king's 
pardon. 

Soon after, Blackbeard married a young girl, 
his thirteenth vv^ife, and settled dov^n near Bath 
v^ith the intention, apparently, of becoming a 
peaceable citizen; but his good resolutions were 
soon broken; "being good" did not appeal to the 
bold sea rover, and soon he was back again on 
the high seas, pursuing unchecked his career of 
plunder. 

Finally, the people in desperation, finding Gov- 
ernor Eden either unable or unwilling to put an 
end to the pirate's depredations, appealed to Gov- 
ernor Spotswood, of Virginia, for aid, and the 
pirate was finally captured and beheaded by Lieu- 
tenant Maynard, whom Spotswood put in com- 
mand of the ship that went out to search for this 
terror of the seas. 

Seen through the softening haze of two centu- 
ries, the figure of the redoubtable sea robber 
acquires a romantic interest, and it is not sur- 
prising that many good and highly respected citi- 
zens of eastern North Carolina number themselves 
quite complacently among the descendants of the 
bold buccaneer. 



61 



CHAPTER VII 

THE OLD BRICK HOUSE — A TRUE HISTORY OF THE 

HISTORIC DWELLING REPUTED TO BE THE 

HOME OF THE FAMOUS PIRATE 

LOCAL tradition claims that the old brick 
house described in the foregoing chapter, 
was once a haunt of the famous pirate, Ed- 
ward Teach, or Blackbeard, as he was commonly 
called. 

Wild legends of lawless revel and secret crime 
have grown up about the old building, until its 
time-stained walls seem steeped in the atmosphere 
of gloom and terror which the poet Hood has so 
graphically caught in his "Haunted House'' : 

"But over all there hung a cloud of fear — 
A sense of mystery, the spirit daunted, 
And said as plain as whisper in the ear, 
'The house is haunted.' " 

It is said that the basement room of the Brick 
House served as a dungeon for prisoners taken in 
Teach's private raids and held for ransom. 

There are darker stories, too, of deeds whose 
secret was known only to the hidden tunnel and 
unrevealing waters below. 

But tradition has been busy with other occu- 
pants of the old house. It is said to have been in 



62 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

colonial days the home of a branch of an ancient 
and noble English family. 

To the care of these gentlefolk their kinsmen 
of old England were said to have entrusted a 
young and lovely girl in order to separate her 
from a lover, whose fortunes failed to satisfy the 
ambition of her proud and wealthy parents. 

The lover followed his fair one across the seas, 
and entered in disguise among the guests assem- 
bled at the great ball which was given at the Brick 
House in honor of their recently arrived and 
charming guest. The young lady's brother, who 
had accompanied her to this country, penetrated 
the disguise of her lover. 

"Words of high disdain and insult" passed be- 
tween the young men, a duel followed, and the 
lover fell, leaving on the floor dark stains which 
are said to remain to this day, in silent witness to 
the tragedy of long ago. 

Many years after, in a closet of the old house, a 
faded pink satin slipper was found which tradi- 
tion naturally assigns to the fair but unhappy 
heroine of the old tale of love and death. 

So much for tradition. 

The story of Teach's occupation of the Old 
Brick House has not been received without ques- 
tion, but in default of more accurate knowledge, 
it has been accepted. 



63 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Recently, certain facts have come to light con- 
cerning the ancient building which are briefly 
given below. 

The information referred to was given by Mr. 
Joseph Sitterson, a prominent resident of Wil- 
liamston, North Carolina. 

According to Mr. Sitterson, the Old Brick House 
was the property of his great grandmother, Nancy 
Murden. This lady was a descendant of Lord 
Murden, who in 1735 sent out an expedition in 
charge of his eldest son to make a settlement in 
the New World. 

The party obtained, whether by grant or pur- 
chase is not known, the land on which the Old 
Brick House now stands. A sandy ridge extends 
into Camden County, and is known to this day as 
Murden's Ridge. 

Young Murden had brought with him from 
England the brick and stone, the carved mantel 
and paneling, which entered into the construction 
of the new home he now proceeded to build. 

It is thought that the house was intended to be 
entirely of brick ; but the end walls of the massive 
chimneys having exhausted the supply, the build- 
ing was finished with . wood. The house was 
planned with the greatest care for defense against 
the Indian raids ; hence the sliding panels, and the 
roomy and secret spaces in which the family plate 



64 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

and jewels brought from the old country could be 
quickly concealed, in case of sudden attack. 

With the same end in view, there were built in 
the basement, from the rich timber of the adjoin- 
ing woods, stalls of cedar, the narrow windows of 
which can still be seen. In these stalls the ponies 
were kept for fear of Indian raids. 

It is believed that in the troubled times preced- 
ing the American Revolution, Lord Murden's son 
succeeded to his father's large estates and re- 
turned to England to claim his inheritance. 

After the Revolution, his American lands were 
confiscated and became the property of the State. 

Shortly after the war two brothers of the Mur- 
den family came to North Carolina, entered the 
old property and took charge of it. 

These brothers married sisters, the Misses Saw- 
yer. In time the Old Brick House came into the 
possession of Nancy Murden, a descendant of one 
of the brothers Murden. 

At her death she left the property as follows: 
One-third to Isaac Murden, one-third to Jerry 
Murden, one-third to Nancy Murden, her grand- 
children. 

This will is recorded in the court-house at Eliza- 
beth City, North Carolina. 



65 



CHAPTER VIII 

"elmwood/' the old swann homestead in 
pasquotank county 

ON A LOW bluff, overlooking the waters of 
the beautiful Pasquotank River, some five 
or six miles from Elizabeth City, there 
stood until a few years before the outbreak of 
the Civil War, an old colonial mansion known 
as *'Elmwood," the home for many years of the 
historic Swann family, who were among the ear- 
liest settlers in our State, and played a prominent 
part in the colonial history of North Carolina. 

Mrs. J. P. Overman, of Elizabeth City, whose 
father, the late Dr. William Pool, of Pasquotank 
County, spent his boyhood days at Elmwood, then 
the home of his father, has given the writer a de- 
scription of this historic house, as learned from 
her father : "The house was situated on the right- 
hand bank of the river, and was set some distance 
back from the road. It was built of brick brought 
from England, and was a large, handsome build- 
ing for those days. As I recall my father's de- 
scription of it, the house was two stories high ; a 
spacious hall ran the full length of the house, 
both up-stairs and down; and in both the upper 
and lower story there were two large rooms on 



66 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

each side of the hall. A broad, massive stairway 
led from the lower hall to the one above. The 
house stood high from the ground, the porch was 
small for the size of the building, and the windows 
were high and narrow. The ceilings of the room.s 
on the first floor had heavy, carved beams of cedar 
that ran the length of the house. On the left of 
the house as you approached from the river road, 
stretched a dense woods, abounding in deer, and in 
those days these animals would venture near the 
homes of men, and feed in the fields." 

The great planters in those early days in North 
Carolina, spent their working hours looking after 
the affairs of their estates, settling the disputes o± 
their tenants, and attending with their fellow- 
landed neighbors the sessions of the General As- 
sembly, and of the courts. Their pleasures were 
much the same as those of their kinsmen across 
the sea in merry England — fox-hunting, feasting 
and dancing; though to these amusements of the 
old country were added the more exciting deer 
chase, and the far more dangerous pastime of a 
bear hunt, when bruin's presence near the home- 
stead became too evident for comfort. Often the 
wild screams of the fierce American panther 
would call the planters forth into the dark forests 
at their doors, and then it must be a hunt to the 
death, for until that cry was stilled, every house 



67 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

within the shadow of the forest was endangered. 
Among the homes of the planters in the ancient 
counties of Pasquotank, Currituck, Perquimans 
and Chowan, Elmwood was noted for the hospi- 
tality of its earliest owners, the Swanns ; and the 
long list of prominent families who afterwards 
lived within its walls, kept alive the old traditions 
of hospitality. 

On many a clear, crisp autumn day, the lawn in 
front of the mansion would be filled with gentry 
on horseback, dressed after the fashion of their 
"neighbors" across the sea in hunting coats of 
pink, ready for a hunt after the wily fox. The 
master of the hounds, William Swann himself, 
would give the signal for the eager creatures to 
be unloosed, the bugle would sound, and the cry 
"off and away" echo over the fields, and the chase 
would be on. A pretty run would reynard give 
his pursuers, and often the shades of evening 
would be falling ere the hunters would return to 
Elmwood, a tired, bedraggled and hungry group. 
Then at the hospitable board the day's adventures 
would be related, and after the dinner a merry 
dance would close the day. 

At Christmas, invitations would be issued to the 
families of the gentry in the nearest counties, to 
attend a great ball at Elmwood. The old house 
would be filled from garret to cellar, and the hos- 



68 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

pitable homes of nearby friends would open to 
take in the overflow of guests. Dames and 
maidens coy, clad in the quaint and picturesque 
colonial costume, with powdered hair and patches, 
in richly brocaded gowns and satin slippers, made 
stately courtesy to gay dandies and jovial squires 
arrayed in coats of many colors, broidered vests, 
knee breeches and silken hose, brilliant buckles at 
knee and on slippers, their long hair worn ring- 
leted and curled, or tied in queues. In stately meas- 
ure the graceful minuet would open the ball. Then 
the gayer strains of the old Virginia reel would 
cause even the dignified dame or sober squire to 
relax; and in laughter and merry-making the 
hours would speed, till the gradual paling of the 
stars and a flush in the east would warn the merry 
dancers that **the night was far spent, and the 
day was at hand." 

Such are the tales still told in our county of the 
olden days at Elmwood — tales handed down from 
father to son, and preserved in the memories of 
the old inhabitants of Pasquotank. And all such 
memories should be preserved and recorded ere 
those who hold them dear have passed away, and 
with them, the traditions that picture to a genera- 
tion all too heedless of the past, the life of these, 
our pioneer forefathers. 

From this old home more distinguished men 



69 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

have gone forth than probably from any other 
home in North Carolina. 

The Hon. J. Bryan Grimes in an address made 
before the State Historical Society at Raleigh in 
1909, gives a long list of eminent Carolinians who 
have called Elmwood their home. Among them 
were Colonel Thomas Swann and Colonel William 
Swann, both in colonial days Speakers of the 
Assembly; three members of the family by the 
name of Samuel Swann, and John Swann, mem- 
bers of Congress. Here lived Fred Blount, son of 
Colonel John Blount, an intimate friend of Gov- 
ernor Tryon. William Shephard, a prominent 
Federalist, for some years made Elmwood his 
home. The Rev. Solomon Pool, President of the 
University of North Carolina, and his brother, 
John Pool, United States Senator from North 
Carolina, both spent their boyhood days in this 
ancient mansion. And, as Colonel Grimes' re- 
searches into the history of this old home have 
made known, and as he relates in his speech on 
"The Importance of Memorials," "At Elmwood 
lived, and with it were identified, ten Speakers of 
the Assembly, five Congressmen, one United States 
Senator, one President of the State University, 
and one candidate for Governor." 

One of the Samuel Swanns who resided at Elm- 
wood was the brave young surveyor, who, with 



70 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

his comrades, Irvine and Mayo, was the first to 
plunge into the tangled depths of the Dismal 
Swamp, when the boundary line between North 
Carolina and Virginia was established. 

Before the War between the States had been de- 
clared, the old house was burned to the ground; 
and since then the estate has been cut into smaller 
farms, and the family burying-ground has been 
desecrated by treasure-seekers, who in their mad 
greed for gold have not hesitated to disturb the 
bones of the sacred dead. 

Just when or how the old home was burned, no 
one is able to tell. Whatever the circumstances of 
the destruction of this fine old building, the loss 
sustained by the county, and by the State, is irre- 
parable. 



71 



CHAPTER IX 
PASQUOTANK IN COLONIAL WARS 

THE earliest wars in which the pioneers of 
North Carolina took part were those 
fought between the first comers into the 
State and the Indians. As Pasquotank was one 
of the earliest of the counties to be settled, we 
might naturally expect that county to have taken 
an active part in those encounters. The fact, how- 
ever, that the great majority of her early settlers 
were Friends, or Quakers, as they are more com- 
monly called, prevented Pasquotank from sharing 
as extensively as she otherwise might have done in 
the fight for existence that the pioneers in Caro- 
lina were compelled to maintain; for one of the 
most rigid rules of the Quaker Church is that 
its members must not take up arms against 
their fellow men, no matter what the provocation 
may be. 

However, a search through the Colonial Records 
reveals the fact that our county has given a fair 
quota of men and money whenever the domestic 
or foreign troubles of colony, state or nation, 
needed her aid. 

The first encounter between our sturdy Anglo- 
Saxon forefathers and the red man of the forest 



72 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

occurred in 1666, two years after William Drum- 
mond took up the reins of government in Albe- 
marle. After this trouble little is recorded, nor 
is Pasquotank nor any of her precincts mentioned 
in reference to the Indian War. But as the ma- 
jority of the settlers in North Carolina then lived 
along the shores of Little River and the Pasquo- 
tank, we may feel sure that the men of this county 
were prominent in subduing their savage foes, 
who, as Captain Ashe records, ''were so speedily 
conquered that the war left no mark upon the 
infant settlement." 

From then until the terrible days of the Tusca- 
rora Massacre of 1711, the county, and Albemarle 
as a whole, rested from serious warfare; but 
these years can hardly be termed peaceful ones 
for the settlers in this region. The Culpeper Re- 
bellion, the dissatisfaction caused by the tyranni- 
cal and illicit deeds of Seth Sothel, the disturbance 
caused by Captain Bibbs, who claimed the office of 
governor in defiance of Ludwell, whom the Lords 
had appointed to rule over Carolina, and the Cary 
troubles, all combined to keep the whole Albemarle 
district in a state of confusion and disorder for 
many years. 

But all of these quarrelings and brawlings were 
hushed and forgotten when in September, 1711, 
the awful tragedy of the Tuscarora Massacre oc- 



73 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

curred. Though the settlers south of Albemarle 
Sound, in the vicinity of Bath and New Bern, and 
on Roanoke Island, suffered most during those 
days of horror, yet from the letters of the Rev. 
Rainsford and of Colonel Pollock, written during 
these anxious days, we learn that the planters 
north of the sound came in for their share of the 
horrors of an Indian uprising that swept away a 
large proportion of the inhabitants of the colony, 
and left the southern counties almost depopulated. 
Though nearly paralyzed by the blow that had 
fallen upon the colony, which, in spite of difficul- 
ties, had been steadily growing and prospering, 
the officers of the government as soon as possible 
began to take steps to punish the Tuscaroras and 
their allies for the unspeakable atrocities commit- 
ted by them during the awful days of the massa- 
cre, and also to devise means for conquering the 
savage foes who were still pursuing their bloody 
work. All the able-bodied men in the State were 
called upon to take part in the warfare against the 
Indians. But so few were left alive to carry on 
the struggle, that Governor Hyde was compelled to 
call upon the Governor of South Carolina and of 
Virginia to come to his aid in saving the colony 
from utter extinction. South Carolina responded 
nobly and generously. Virginia, for various rea- 
sons, sent but little aid to her afflicted sister col- 



74 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

ony. For two long years the war continued, until 
at last the Indians were conquered, the surviving 
hostile Tuscaroras left the State, and peace was 
restored to the impoverished and sorely tried 
colony. 

During the bloody struggle, Pasquotank, which, 
with the other northern counties suffered but little 
in comparison with the counties south of the Albe- 
marle, had sent what help she could to those upon 
whom the horrors of the war had fallen most 
heavily. In the Colonial Records this entry of 
services rendered by Pasquotank is found in a 
letter sent by Lieutenant Woodhouse and Thomas 
Johnson to certain "Gentlemen, Friends, and 
Neighbors," ^dated October 3, 1712. "Captain Nor- 
ton, as I was informed by Mrs. Knight, sailed last 
week from Pasquotank in Major Reed's sloop, 
with 30 or 40 men, provisions, and two barrels of 
gunpowder and ten barrels, I think, of shot." The 
destination of ship, men and cargo was Bath, the 
scene of the most disastrous of the Indian out- 
breaks. 

In an extract from a "Book of the Orders and 
Judgments and Decrees of the Hon. Edward Hyde, 
Esq., President of the Council," mentioned in Dr. 
Hawk's History of North Carolina, we find the fol- 
lowing entry: "Ordered that Capt. Edward Allard 
shall depart with his sloop "Core Sound Mer- 



75 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

chant" to Pasquotank River, and there take from 
on board the ''Return," Mr. Charles Worth Glover, 
so much corn as will load his sloop, give to Mr. 
Glover a receipt for the same, and that he em- 
brace the first fair wind and weather to go to Bath 
County and there apply himself to the Hon. John 
Barnewell, Esq., and follow such instructions as 
he shall receive from him." 

Again, in a letter from the Rev. Giles Rains- 
forth to *'Jno. Chamberlain, Esq.," written from 
"Chowan in North Carolina July 25, 1712," fur- 
ther mention is made of Pasquotank's part in the 
Tuscarora War: "Col. Boyde was the other day 
sent out with a party against the Indians, but was 
unfortunately shot through the head and few of 
his men came home, but shared his fate and fell 
sacrifices to the same common misfortune." 

It has been charged against Pasquotank that 
her citizens did not respond to the call for volun- 
teers to take part in the Tuscarora War ; and it is 
true that the Quakers in the county did enjoin 
upon their brethren that they should not bear 
arms in this or any other disturbance. It is 
also true that a number of the citizens in the 
county did obey this injunction; and when the 
war was over we find that certain members of the 
Friends' meeting were brought to trial by the 
courts "for not going out in ye Indian Wars." 



76 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

But enough instances have been recorded to show- 
that our county did take an active part in break- 
ing the power of the Tuscaroras and in driving 
them from the State. 

In 1715, when South Carolina in her turn under- 
went the horrors of an Indian war, and appealed 
to North Carolina for aid, we find that men from 
Pasquotank joined with other forces from the 
colony in response to this appeal. Captain John 
Pailin and Captain John Norton, both of Pasquo- 
tank, are ordered ''to draw out their companies 
and go to the assistance of South Carolina in the 
Yamassie War." And furthermore the command 
reads : *'If men refuse, each captain is ordered to 
draft ten men who have small families or none, 
and to put them under Captain Hastins." That 
drafting was not resorted to, and that the men 
went willingly to the aid of their brethren in South 
Carolina, who rendered the northern colony such 
generous assistance in the Tuscarora War, is 
proved by the fact that fifty men were raised by 
the two captains, and cheerfully marched to the 
front along with the bands of militia from the 
neighboring counties. 

So in these earliest trials of the military courage 
of her citizens, the county proved that she could 
and would take a worthy part. 



77 



CHAPTER X 

PASQUOTANK IN COLONIAL WARS — "THE WAR OF 
JENKINS' EAR" 

AFTER the war with the Tuscaroras was 
over, and most of that powerful tribe had 
left the State, going to New York and 
becoming the sixth of the tribes there called ''The 
Six Nations/' for many years there were no 
pitched battles between the red men and the set- 
tlers in North Carolina. 

But the troubles with the Indians did not end 
with the Tuscarora War; for though a treaty 
was made in 1713 with Tom Blount, king of the 
Tuscaroras, who remained in the State, whereby 
the Indians bound themselves to keep the peace, 
yet, as late as 1718 the colonists were still putting 
troops in the field to "catch or kill the enemy In- 
dians." Indeed the settlers in Albemarle suffered 
as much from the Indians after the Tuscaroras 
left the State as they did during the days of the 
Indian massacre of 1711, and of the open warfare 
that followed. 

In 1714 another Indian outbreak occurred, and 
the alarm was so great that many of the settlers 
in the Albemarle region determined to flee to Vir- 
ginia, where the government seemed better able to 



78 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

protect its citizens than were the officials of North 
Carolina. 

To prevent such an immigration from the col- 
ony, Governor Eden, who had succeeded Edward 
Hyde, issued a proclamation forbidding the people 
to leave the colony; and Governor Spotswood, of 
Virginia, gave orders to arrest any Carolinians 
who should flee into his colony without a passport 
from duly authorized officials in Carolina. 

But as the years passed on, the Indian troubles 
gradually ceased, and the red men mostly disap- 
peared from the eastern portion of the State, 
though as late as 1731 Dr. Brickwell speaks of 
finding there "a nation called the Pasquotanks, 
who kept cattle and made butter, but at present 
have not cattle." 

With the dangers from the Indians over, and 
with the transfer of Carolina from the hands of 
the neglectful Lords Proprietors into the posses- 
sion of King George II, brighter and more pros- 
perous days began to dawn for North Carolina. 
The population rapidly increased; and, whereas, 
in 1717 there were only 2,000 persons in the 
colony, by 1735 this number had increased to 
4,000. Lively wranglings there were often be- 
tween the Royal Governors and the sturdy and in- 
dependent members of the Grand Assembly, who 
resolutely carried out their purpose to preserve 



79 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

the constitutional rights of the people of the 
province. But no war cloud darkened the skies for 
many years after the Indian troubles were over. 

Not until 1740 was there again a call to arms 
heard in North Carolina; then trouble arose be- 
tween Spain and England, and the colonists in 
America were called upon to aid their Sovereign, 
King George II, in his war against the haughty 
Don. 

The real cause of this war was the constant vio- 
lation on the part of the English of the commer- 
cial laws which Spain had made to exclude foreign 
nations from the trade of her American colonies. 
But the event which precipitated matters and gave 
to the conflict which followed the name of *The 
War of Jenkins' Ear," was as follows : 

The Spanish captured an English merchant ves- 
sel, whose master they accused of violating the 
trade laws of Spain. In order to wring a confes- 
sion from the master. Captain Jenkins, his captors 
hung him up to the yard arms of his ship until he 
was nearly dead, and then let him down, thinking 
he would confess. But on his stoutly denying that 
he had been engaged in any nefarious dealings, 
and since no proof could be found against him, 
the captain of the Spanish ship cut off one of the 
English captain's ears, and insolently told him to 
show it to his countrymen as a warning of what 



80 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Englishmen might expect who were caught trad- 
ing with Spain's colonies in America. 

Captain Jenkins put the ear in his pocket, sailed 
home as fast as wind and wave would carry him, 
and was taken straight to the House of Parliament 
with his story. Such was the indignation of both 
Lords and Commons at this insult to one of their 
nation, and so loud was the clamor for vengeance, 
that even Walpole, who for years had managed to 
hold the English dogs of war in leash, was now 
compelled to yield to the will of the people, and 
Parliament declared war with Spain. 

Immediately upon this declaration. King George 
called upon his ''trusty and well beloved subjects 
in Carolina" and the other twelve colonies, to 
raise troops to help the mother country in her 
struggle with arrogant Spain. Carolina responded 
nobly to the call for troops, as the following ex- 
tract from a letter from Governor Gabriel Johns- 
ton to the Duke of Newcastle will testify: "I can 
now assure your grace that we have raised 400 
men in this province who are just going to put to 
sea. In those Northern Parts of the Colony ad- 
joining to Virginia, we have got 100 men each, 
though some few deserted since they began to send 
them on board the transports at Cape Fear. I have 
good reason to believe we could have raised 200 
more if it had been possible to negotiate the Bills 



81 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

of Exchange in this part of the Continent ; but as 
that was impossible we were obliged to rest satis- 
fied with four companies. I must in justice to the 
assembly of the Province inform Your Grace that 
they were very zealous and unanimous in promot- 
ing this service. They have raised a subsidy of 
1200 pounds as it is reckoned hereby on which the 
men have subsisted ever since August, and all the 
Transports are victualed." 

While no mention is made of Pasquotank in this 
war, nor of men from any other county save New 
Hanover, we may reasonably infer that among 
the three hundred troops from the northern coun- 
ties adjoining Virginia, men from our own county 
were included. No record has been kept of the 
names of the privates who enlisted from Carolina 
in this war. Nor do we know how many of those 
who at the king's call left home and country to 
fight a foreign land ever returned to their native 
shores ; but we do know that these Carolina troops 
took part in the disastrous engagements of Carta- 
gena and Boca-Chica; and that King George's 
troops saw fulfilled Walpole's prophecy made at 
the time of the rejoicing over the news that Par- 
liament had declared war with Spain: "You are 
ringing the joy bells now," said the great Prime 
Minister, "but before this war is over you will all 
be wringing your hands !" 



82 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

After the two crushing defeats of Cartagena 
and Boca Chica, the troops from the colonies who 
still survived embarked upon their ships to return 
home; but while homeward bound a malignant 
fever broke out among the soldiers which de- 
stroyed nine out of every ten men on the ships. 
But few of those from Carolina lived to see their 
native home again. That they bore themselves 
bravely on the field of battle, none who know the 
war record of North Carolina will dare deny; 
though as regards her private soldiers in this war, 
history is silent. 

One of the officers from Carolina, Captain Innes, 
of Wilmington, made such a record for gallantry 
during the two engagements mentioned, that in 
the French and Indian War, in which fourteen 
years later, not only the Thirteen Colonies, but 
most of the countries of Europe as well, were 
embroiled, he was made commander-in-chief of 
all the American forces, George Washington him- 
self gladly serving under this distinguished Caro- 
linian. 



83 



CHAPTER XI 

A SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION — THE STORY OF A 

PASQUOTANK BOY WHO FOLLOWED 

WASHINGTON 

IT IS a well known fact that the records of the 
services of the North Carolina soldiers who 
took part in the Revolutionary War are very 
meagre. Of the private, and other officers of lesser 
rank, this is especially true. Therefore, it is not 
surprising that a search through the Colonial 
Records for a statement of the services rendered 
his country by John Koen, a brave soldier of the 
Revolution from Pasquotank County, reveals only 
this fact: that he enlisted in Moore's Company, 
Tenth Regiment, on May 30, 1777, and served for 
three years. 

But in addition to the above information, the 
following incidents in the life of John Koen have 
been furnished the writer of this history by Mrs. 
Margaret Temple, formerly of Rosedale, now a 
resident of Elizabeth City. 

Mrs. Temple is a granddaughter of Colonel 
Koen, the widow of William S. Temple, a brave 
Confederate soldier from Pasquotank, and the 
mother of two of our former townsmen, Hon. 
Oscar Temple, of Denver, Colorado, and Robert 
Temple, of New Orleans. 



84 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Mrs. Temple was about twelve years old at the 
time of Colonel Koen's death, and retains a very 
vivid recollection of the stirring stories of the 
Revolution told by her grandfather during the 
long winter evenings, when the family gathered 
around the big fire-place in the old Koen home- 
stead near Rosedale. 

A record copied from the Koen family Bible 
states that John Koen, son of Daniel Koen and 
Grace Koen, his wife, was born on the 27th day 
of January, 1759 ; and years later this record was 
entered: "John Koen, departed this life Septem- 
ber 5th, 1840, aged 83 yrs." 

At the age of eighteen he entered his country's 
service as a volunteer, and served through the 
Revolution, participating in many of the greatest 
victories won by the Americans, sharing the worst 
hardships of the war with his fellow patriots, and 
laying down his arms only after Cornwallis had 
surrendered his sword at Yorktown. 

At the beginning of the winter of 1775-1776, 
North Carolina was confronting the most perilous 
conditions which she had ever been called to face. 
From the north, east and west, the foe was press- 
ing, while within her own borders the Tories were 
rising, and planning to join the British in the sub- 
jection of this rebellious state. 



85 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

The plan formulated by the enemy was this: 
Sir Henry Clinton, with troops of British regulars, 
was to come down the coast to the mouth of the 
Cape Fear River, where Lord Cornwallis, who 
with seven regiments from England was hastening 
across the Atlantic, was to join him. Lord Dun- 
more, Royal Governor of Virginia, was to incite 
the slaves and indentured servants in the Albe- 
marle district to unite with the Tories in the 
State; and the Indians in the western counties 
were to be induced to take up arms against the 
whites. 

If these plans had matured, North Carolina 
would have been overpowered, but one by one they 
were frustrated. The battle of Great Bridge de- 
feated Dunmore in his purpose. The Snow Cam- 
paign quieted the Indian uprising. The battle of 
Moore's Creek Bridge crushed the Tories, and the 
heavy winter storms delayed Cornwallis and pre- 
vented him from joining Clinton at the mouth of 
the Cape Fear. 

When Lord Dunmore issued his proclamation 
offering freedom to the slaves and indentured ser- 
vants who should join his majesty's forces, and 
then followed up this notice by burning and rav- 
aging the plantations around Norfolk, Virginia, 
called upon her sister State for help, and Long and 
Sumner, from Halifax, and Warren, Skinner and 



86 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Dauge from Perquimans and Pasquotank counties, 
hastened with their minute men and volunteers to 
Great Bridge, where Colonel Woodford in com- 
mand of the Virginia troops, had thrown up forti- 
fications. 

Among the volunteers who were hastening to 
the scene of action was John Koen, of Pasquotank, 
a boy in years, but a man in purpose and resolu- 
tion. 

On December 9, 1775, the British attacked the 
fortifications, and the sound of heavy firing at 
Great Bridge, the first battle in which the men of 
the Albemarle section had been called to partici- 
pate, was heard by the dwellers in the counties 
nearest Norfolk. 

The story is still told by old residents of Rose- 
dale, that John Koen's mother, who was washing 
the breakfast dishes when the firing began, hear- 
ing the first heavy reverberations from the can- 
non some thirty miles away, dropped the dish she 
was wiping, and in her motherly anxiety for the 
safety of her boy, cried out, "Dodge, John, dodge !" 

Whether John dodged or not we do not know, 
but we do know that he bore his part manfully in 
this, his first battle, and shared in the victory 
which drove Dunmore from Virginia, and saved 
North Carolina from invasion from that direc- 
tion, and a threatened uprising of the slaves. 



87 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

On February 26, 1776, the battle of Moore's 
Creek Bridge was fought, which defeated the 
Tories in Carolina, and convinced the British that 
further attempts at this time to conquer the State 
were useless. So, toward the end of May, Clinton's 
fleet sailed from the mouth of Cape Fear River to 
Charleston, South Carolina, where his intention 
was to reduce that city. 

Generals Charles Lee and Robert Howe, of the 
Continental army, hastened immediately to the de- 
fense of that city, and among the soldiers who fol- 
lowed them was John Koen. Here again the 
British were defeated. Colonel Moultrie's Palmetto 
fortifications proving an effective defense to the 
city by the sea, and Thompson's South Carolinians 
and North Carolinians bravely repelling the 
British land troops. Here Koen fought by the 
side of the soldiers of North Carolina, and here, 
possibly, he was an eye witness of the brave deed 
by which Sergeant Jasper won undying fame. 

The British fleet, repulsed in the attempt to cap- 
ture Charleston, sailed northward, the danger of 
invasion that for six months threatened the South 
was over, and we find many of the soldiers in 
North Carolina released from duty and returning 
to their homes. 

But John Koen's heart was filled with boyish 
love and admiration for the commander-in-chief 



88 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

of the American army, and his one desire now 
was to follow Washington; so, shouldering his 
musket, the hardy young soldier marched away to 
offer his services to the great general. 

We do not know whether or not John Koen was 
with Washington in the battle at Long Island and 
at White Plains, but from his own account as re- 
lated by him to his family, he did have the glorious 
honor of sharing in the victory at Trenton on De- 
cember 26, 1776. 

Most of us are familiar with the picture of 
"Washington Crossing the Delaware," wherein he 
is represented standing erect in a small boat that 
seems about to be dashed to pieces by the heavy 
waves and the cakes of ice, but according to Col- 
onel Koen, who was with Washington on that 
momentous night, no boats were used. The river 
was frozen over, and the soldiers, in order to 
keep their footing on the slippery ice, laid their 
muskets down on the frozen river and walked 
across on them to the Jersey shore. At times 
the ice bent so beneath the tread of the men 
that they momentarily expected to be submerged 
in the dark waters, but the dangerous crossing 
was safely made, the British and Hessian troops, 
spending the holiday hours in feasting and carous- 
ing at Trenton, were captured, and a great victory 
won for the American army. 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Some time in the spring of 1777, John Koen 
must have returned to his home in Pasquotank 
County, for we find in the Colonial Records that 
in the month of May, 1777, he enlisted in Moore's 
Company, Tenth Regiment, from North Carolina, 
and that in June he was promoted to the rank of 
corporal. 

According to the fireside tales told by Colonel 
Koen to the household in the old Koen homestead, 
this young soldier, then only twenty years old, was 
with Gates' army, that, under the valiant leader- 
ship of Morgan and Arnold, won for the newly 
born nation the great victory of Saratoga; and 
the winter of that same year — '77 — we find him 
sharing with Washington's army the trials and 
privations of the days of suffering at Valley Forge. 

'*I have seen the tears trickling down my grand- 
father's face when he told of the sufferings of that 
awful winter," said his granddaughter, Mrs. Tem- 
ple to the writer, "and I used to wonder at seeing 
a grown man cry, and often I said in my childish 
way that war should never bring a tear in my 
eyes. Little did I know then that the bitterest 
tears I should ever shed would be caused by war, 
and for eighteen months during the terrible strug- 
gle between the North and the South I should 
mourn as dead my soldier husband, whom God in 



90 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

His mercy restored to me after all hope of seeing 
him alive again was over." 

Although the Colonial Records state that Koen 
enlisted for only three years in May, 1777, he must 
have re-enlisted in 1780, for he has left with his 
family a graphic description of General Lincoln's 
surrender of Charleston in that year, and of the 
horrible treatment to which the Continental 
troops were subjected, who found themselves pris- 
oners of the victorious British army. 

The hot climate, the wretched condition of the 
prison ships, the unwholesome and insufficient 
food, made these days of imprisonment at Char- 
leston equal in horror to the worst days at Valley 
Forge. Of the 1,800 prisoners who were taken 
captive on May 12, 1780, only 700 survived when 
they were paroled, and of these our hero was one. 

In what other battles or experiences Colonel 
Koen shared we have no record, historical or tra- 
ditional, but according to his granddaughter's 
account, learned from his own lips, he served his 
country until the victory of Yorktown was won 
and peace was declared. And it is easy to believe 
that this gallant soldier who was one of the first 
to volunteer at Great Bridge, and who fought so 
bravely in many of the sharpest struggles of the 
great conflict, would not have been willing to lay 



91 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

down his arms until his country was freed from 
the power that had so long held it in thrall. 

So we can imagine him following Greene in his 
retreat across the State, taking part in the battle 
of Guilford Courthouse, and possibly present 
when the proud Cornwallis was forced to surren- 
der at Yorktown. 

When the struggle at last had ended, John Koen 
returned to his home. During the years of his 
absence his plantation was managed by William 
Temple, whose pretty young daughter, Susannah, 
soon won the heart of the brave soldier, and con- 
sented to become his bride. After some years of 
happy married life, the young wife died, and a few 
years later we find John Koen making a second 
marriage, his bride being Christian Hollowell, of 
Perquimans County. 

Owing to his gallant conduct in the Revolution- 
ary War, John Koen, a few years after the w^ar 
was over, was appointed Colonel of the militia in 
Pasquotank County, and the government awarded 
him a pension, which was paid until his death in 
1840. 



92 



CHAPTER XII 

GENERAL ISAAC GREGORY, A REVOLUTIONARY OFFICER 
OF PASQUOTANK-CAMDEN 

DURING the War of the Revolution, the Albe- 
marle Region, though threatened with in- 
vasion time and again by the British, sel- 
dom heard the tread of the enemy's army, or felt 
the shock of battle. For this immunity from the 
destruction of life and property, such as the citi- 
zens whose homes lay in the path of Cornwallis 
and Tarleton suffered, this section of North Caro- 
lina is largely indebted to General Isaac Gregory, 
one of the bravest officers who ever drew sword in 
defense of his native home and country. 

Both Pasquotank and Camden claim this gallant 
officer for their son, and both have a right to that 
claim; for the two counties were one until 1777. 
In that year a petition was presented to the Gen- 
eral Assembly by Joseph Jones, of Pasquotank, 
from citizens living in what is now Camden 
County, that the portion of Pasquotank lying on 
the northeast bank of the river should be formed 
into a separate county, and have a courthouse of 
its own, in order to do away with the inconven- 
ience the people of that section suffered in having 
to cross the river to attend court, military drills 



93 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

and other public gatherings. The General As- 
sembly passed an act providing for the erection 
of a new county, and this county was named for 
Charles Pratt, Earl of Camden, a member of Par- 
liament and Chancellor, who in the stormy days of 
1765 worked for the repeal of the hated Stamp 
Act, and justice to the Colonies. 

Before the long and bloody days of the Revolu- 
tion proved his worth as a soldier, Isaac Gregory 
had won a prominent place in the public affairs of 
his county. His name first occurs in the Colonial 
Records in 1773, when he was elected sheriff of 
Pasquotank. In the same year he was appointed 
one of the trustees of St. Martin's Chapel in In- 
dian Town, Currituck County, a settlement whose 
citizens were many of them to become honored in 
the civil and military history of our State. 

Ever since the passing of the Stamp Act in 
1765, low mutterings of the storm that was soon 
to sweep over the country some ten years later 
had disturbed the peace of the Thirteen Colonies ; 
and events in North Carolina showed that this 
colony was standing shoulder to shoulder with her 
American sisters in their endeavor to obtain jus- 
tice from England. 

In 1774, John Harvey's trumpet call to the peo- 
ple of North Carolina to circumvent Governor 
Martin's attempt to deprive them of representa- 



94 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

tion in the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, 
had resulted in the convention at New Bern, the 
first meeting in America at which the represen- 
tatives of a colony as a whole had ever gathered 
in direct defiance of orders from a Royal Gov- 
ernor. 

The next year, in April, Harvey again called a 
convention of the people to meet in New Bern. 
Again Governor Martin was defied; again, the 
North Carolinians, taking matters into their own 
hands, elected delegates to Philadelphia, and be- 
fore adjourning, added Carolina's name to the as- 
sociation of Colonies. 

Pasquotank was represented in this convention 
by Edward Jones, Joseph Redding, Edward Everi- 
gen, John Hearing, and Isaac Gregory. The last 
named, being by now an acknowledged leader in 
his county, was appointed by this body a mem- 
ber of the Committee of Safety in the Edenton 
District. 

The path toward separation from the mother 
country was now being rapidly trod by the Ameri- 
can colonies, though few, as yet, realized whither 
their steps were tending. In the vanguard of this 
march toward liberty and independence. North 
Carolina kept a conspicuous place. The Edenton 
Tea Party in October, 1774, had proved the mettle 
of her women. The farmers of Mecklenburg had 



95 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

struck the first chord in the song of independence, 
hardly a note of which had been sounded by the 
other colonies. Governor Martin had fled from 
New Bern, and in August, 1775, the Hillsboro Con- 
vention had organized a temporary form of gov- 
ernment, and had placed at the head of public 
affairs Cornelius Harnett, who, as President of the 
Provincial Council, had more power in the State 
than is generally delegated to a governor. 

In December, 1775, Lord Dunmore's attempted 
invasion of the State had been thwarted, largely 
by the aid of the Minute Men from Albemarle. 
Then came the famous Snow Campaign, in which 
the militia of the western counties joined the pa- 
triots of South Carolina in defeating the Tories of 
that State. And in February, 1776, the important 
victory at Moore's Creek Bridge had completely 
for a time broken the power of the Loyalists in 
North Carolina. There was no longer any hope 
of obtaining justice from England, nor, after such 
open and steady rebellion against the king's offi- 
cers, civil and military, could there be any hope of 
conciliation with the mother country, save on 
terms too humiliating to even contemplate. 

North Carolina, recognizing these facts, called 
another convention to meet at Halifax in April, 
1776, and there sounded her defiance as a State to 
King and Parliament, and boldly authorized her 



96 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

delegates to the next Continental Congress at 
Philadelphia to vote for independence. 

The convention then proceeded to make further 
preparations for the war which all now felt was 
inevitable. Pasquotank, in response to the call 
immediately issued for more troops, raised two 
regiments of militia. Isaac Gregory, who had 
been appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Pasquo- 
tank Militia by the Convention of 1775, was pro- 
moted and made Colonel of the Second Regiment 
of Pasquotank Militia, the other officers being 
Dempsey Burgess, Lieutenant - Colonel, Joshua 
Campbell, Major, and Peter Dauge, Second Major. 

Independence having been declared by the Con- 
tinental Congress of 1776, the thirteen Colonies, 
now independent States, proceeded to organize a 
permanent government within their several bor- 
ders. 

In North Carolina a State convention was called 
to meet at Halifax in November, 1776, to frame a 
constitution for the government of that State. To 
this convention Isaac Gregory, Henry Abbott, De- 
votion Davis, Dempsey Burgess and Lemuel Bur- 
gess were elected to represent Pasquotank, and 
Abbott was appointed on the committee to frame 
the constitution. By the 18th of December the 
work was completed and the constitution adopted, 



97 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

which, with amendments, is still the organic law 
of the State. 

After Clinton's unsuccessful attempt to invade 
North Carolina in May, 1776, no further effort to 
place the State under British control was made 
until 1780. But during the intervening years the 
Carolina troops had not been idle. Their valor 
had been proved at Brandywine, Germantown and 
Stony Point, and during the winter at Valley 
Forge 1,450 of her soldiers shared with their com- 
rades from the other States the hunger, cold and 
suffering that was the portion of Washington's 
army throughout those dreary months. The North 
Carolina troops had aided in the brave but unsuc- 
cessful attempt to drive the British from Savan- 
nah, and 5,000 of her soldiers had been sent to 
prevent the capture of Charleston ; but the patriot 
forces had been unable to repulse the invaders. 
Savannah fell, then Charleston, and by the last of 
May, 1780, both Georgia and South Carolina were 
in the hands of the enemy, and Cornwallis was 
threatening North Carolina. 

So great was the blow to the American cause 
from the loss of these Southern States, and so 
great the danger confronting North Carolina, that 
Congress ordered DeKalb, of the Continental line 
with the regulars from Maryland and Delaware to 
march to the rescue of the patriots in the South. 



98 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

General Gates, the reputed victor at Saratoga, 
was also ordered South, and put in command of 
the Southern forces. 

For awhile the enemy remained quiet, Cornwal- 
lis delaying the devastation of South Carolina 
until the maturing crops should be safe. This 
respite gave the Carolinians time to collect their 
forces on the South Carolina border, in order to 
drive back the enemy. 

Isaac Gregory, who in May, 1779, had been pro- 
moted to the office of Brigadier-General of the 
Edenton District, on the resignation of John Pugh 
Williams, was ordered to join General Caswell in 
South Carolina. As soon as he could collect his 
men, Gregory marched towards the Piedmont sec- 
tion, on his way to Caswell's army; and by June 
he was with Rutherford's Brigade at Yadkin's 
Ford in Rowan. Near this place the Tories had 
collected, some 800 strong ; and Rutherford hoped, 
with Gregory's aid, to crush them. But to his dis- 
appointment, no opportunity was given, for Gen- 
eral Bryan, the Tory leader, hearing of the defeat 
of the Loyalists at Ramseur's Mill a few days be- 
fore, crossed the Yadkin and united with General 
MacArthur, whom Cornwallis had sent to Anson 
County. 

By July 31 Gregory's men, with Rutherford and 
his brigade, were with General Caswell at The 



99 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Cheraws, just across the South Carolina border. 
For several weeks there was much suffering 
among the men on account of the lack of food, for 
though corn was plentiful, the rivers were so high 
that the mills could not grind the meal. 

Lord Rawdon's army was stationed near Cam- 
den, South Carolina, and Gates, who had joined 
Caswell on August 17, having learned that the 
British general was daily expecting a supply of 
food and stores for his men, determined to inter- 
cept the convoy and capture the supplies for his 
own army. In the meantime Cornwallis, unknown 
to Gates, had joined Lord Rawdon. Gates, igno- 
rant of this reinforcement of Cornwallis' troops, 
marched leisurely towards Camden to capture the 
coveted stores. 

The result of the battle that followed is known 
only too well. The American militia, panic- 
stricken at the furious onslaught of the enemy, 
threw down their arms and fled. General Gates, 
after a vain attempt to rally his troops, lost cour- 
age, and abandoning his forces and his stores, 
brought everlasting disgrace upon his name by 
fleeing in hot haste from the field. 

But the cowardly conduct of Gates and several 
of the other officers of the American army, as well 
as many of the militia, in this disastrous battle, 
was offset by the heroism and courage of others ; 



100 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

and among those who won undying fame on that 
fatal field, none is more worthy of praise than 
General Gregory. 

Roger Lamb, a British officer, writing an ac- 
count of the battle, and speaking of the disgrace- 
ful conduct of those officers and men whose flight 
from the field brought shame upon the American 
army, gives this account of Isaac Gregory's he- 
roic struggle to withstand the enemy at this 
bloody field: **In justice to North Carolina, it 
should be remarked that General Gregory's bri- 
gade acquitted themselves well. They formed on 
the left of the Continentals, and kept the field 
while they had a cartridge left. Gregory himself 
was twice wounded by bayonets in bringing off his 
men, and many in his brigade had only bayonet 
wounds." 

As to fight hand to hand with bayonets requires 
far more courage than to stand at a distance and 
fire a musket, this account of Gregory and his 
troops proves the bravery with which they fought 
during those terrible hours. General Gregory's 
horse was shot from under him while the battle 
was raging; and seeing him fall, so sure was the 
enemy of his death that Cornwallis in his official 
report of the battle, gave in his name in the list of 
the American officers killed on the field. 

Two days after the battle of Camden, the pa- 



id 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

triots, Sliolby. Clarko ami Williams, defeated a 
band o( Tories at RlusKrovo's Mill in South Caro- 
lina ; but hearing o( the disaster at Camden, these 
otlioers now witluirew l'n>m the State. Sumter's 
corps, near Koi'ky Mount, had been put to tlivilU 
by Tarlelon. (laies luul tied the State, and only 
Pavie's men were let't between the army o( Corn- 
wallis and Charlotte. North C'arolina. 

Had the British Ceneral pressed on into the 
State, North (\arolina nuist have inevitably t'allen 
into the hands oi' the enemy. Hut Cornwallis de- 
layed the invasion for nearly a month, thus jrivinjr 
the Carolinians time to eoUeet their forces to repel 
his attempt. 

The (uMieral Assembly which met in Septem- 
ber. 17S0. aetinvi' upon iunernor Nash's advice, 
created a Hoaril oi War to assist him in conduct- 
ing the military atVairs o( the State. This board 
now proceeded io put CuMieral Smallwood. o( 
Maryland, in connnand o\' all the t'orces in the 
State, jrivinjr him authority over all the olhcers in 
the Soutliern army, the honor beinir cont erred 
upon him on acciuint o( his i>-allant conduct at 
(""amden. Cicneral (hvvi'ory was consequently 
ordered to hold himselt' in readiness to obey luMi- 
cral Small woi>d*s orders, with the other olUcers in 
North Carolina. 

The Uo.'ird ol' War then proceeded to raise 



102 



TN ANCIENT AT.BEMAUT.E 

inoiuw, arms and tiuMi for I lie aiMny thai would 
soon bv called iii)on to drive ('oriiwallis I'l-oin \\u\ 
Slate. (Ire^ory's brigade I'eceived $125, ()()() of tiie 
fluids raised, and 150 lliids and 15 ^ims were dis- 
iril)nted amoiiK his soldiers. 

The Ili'ilish now eonlideidly expected that Corn- 
wallis would (juiekly subdue North ('arolina, then 
sweep over the State iido Virjfinia. In order to 
prevent the Americans from luiri-yiuK into that 
State to join forces against ('ornwallis, (leneral 
Leslie was ordered from New York to the Chesa- 
peake, aiul in October his army was stationed near 
South C^iays in VirKinia, not far from Norfolk. 

The presence of Leslie's army so close to the 
Carolina border caused much alarm foi- the safety 
of the Albemarle section, which for the second 
time was in danger of invasion. (Jeneral (Jre^ory, 
who after the battle of ('amden had joined Exum 
and Jarvis in froid of Cornvvallis, had i-ecenlly 
returiu'd to Albemarle, lie was now ordered to 
take the held aRainst Leslie, and to prevent him 
from entering the State. l<'rom his cami) at (treat 
Swamp, near North River, he wrote lo ( Joxfinoi' 
Nash in Novembc^r, 17S(), report in^ the icpulse of 
the enemy, lie also warned the (Joverfior that- th(» 
IJrilish were planninjj: to attack lOdeidon; and h(^ 
set forth in his hotter the blow lii.'d I he ca|)ture of 
this town would be to the coninierce of tlu^ State. 



103 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

General Gregory's post at Great Swamp was 
no sinecure. He had only about 100 men to 
withstand Leslie, whose forces at Portsmouth 
amounted to nearly 1,000 men. His troops were 
poorly equipped, half naked, and ill-fed; and his 
situation seemed almost desperate. To add to his 
troubles, an attempt was made at this time by 
Colonel Blount, of the Edenton District, to de- 
prive him of his command. But a Council of State, 
held at Camp Norfleet Mills to inquire into the 
matter, declared that as Colonel Blount had re- 
signed of his own free will and accord — in favor 
of Gregory — he should not now take the command 
from him. 

In spite of the troubles and perplexities that 
beset Gregory in the fall of 1780, he bravely held 
his ground ; and by the end of November he wrote 
Governor Nash from his camp at North West that 
the British had abandoned Portsmouth, and had 
departed for parts unknown. 

While these events were taking place in the 
East, Cornwallis, whose left wing under Ferguson 
had suffered a crushing defeat at King's Moun- 
tain, disappointed at the humbling of the Tories at 
that battle, had left North Carolina on October 
12th, and returned to South Carolina. The heavy 
rains encountered by his army on his retreat 
caused much sickness among his men; and him- 



104 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

self falling ill, he was obliged to give up his com- 
mand temporarily to Lord Rawdon. 

General Leslie's destination soon became known. 
On November 23 he had abandoned the vicinity 
of Norfolk, and had sailed to Wilmington, N. C, 
hoping to rouse the Tories in that section; but 
Lord Rawdon's army being now in great danger, 
Leslie was ordered to his assistance, and he 
accordingly set out for the British army near 
Camden. But Southern Virginia and the Albe- 
marle region were not long to be free from 
the fear of invasion, for soon another British 
army under the command of the traitor, Benedict 
Arnold, sailed into Chesapeake Bay, and Gregory 
was again sent to keep the enemy in check. 

During this campaign a serious charge was 
brought against Gregory, which, though soon 
proved to be wholly unfounded, caused the gallant 
officer life-long mortification and distress. The 
circumstances of this unfortunate occurrence were 
as follows : 

Captain Stevens, a British officer in Arnold's 
corps, while sitting idly by his fire one night, "just 
for a joke," as he afterwards explained, wrote two 
notes to General Gregory, which he intended to 
destroy, as they were simply the product of his 
own imagination, and were never intended to go 
out of his hands. 



105 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

In some unknown way these papers came into 
the hands of an American officer, who, deeming 
from their contents that Gregory was a traitor, 
carried them to headquarters. Their purport 
being made public, even Gregory's most loyal 
friends began to look upon him with suspicion and 
distrust. 

The first of these two notes was as follows : 

''General Gregory: 

''Your well-formed plans of delivering into the 
hands of the British these people now in your 
command, gives me much pleasure. Your next, I 
hope, will mention place of ambuscade, and man- 
ner you wish to fall into my hands." 

The second note was equally incriminating: 

"General Gregory: 

"A Mr. Ventriss was last night made prisoner 
by three or four of your people. I only wish to 
inform you that Ventriss could not help doing 
what he did in helping to destroy the logs. I my- 
self delivered him the order from Colonel Simcox." 

Great was the excitement and consternation in 
Gregory's brigade, and indeed throughout the 
American army when these notes were read. 
Arnold's treason early in 1780 was still fresh in 
the minds of all ; and it was natural that the accu- 
sation now brought against General Gregory 
should find ready and widespread credence. Greg- 



106 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

ory was arrested and court-martialed by his own 
men; but his innocence was soon established, for 
as soon as Colonel Stevens heard of the disgrace 
he had unintentionally brought upon an innocent 
man, he hastened to make amends for his thought- 
less act by a full explanation of his part in the 
aifair. Colonel Parker, a British officer and a 
friend of Stevens, had been informed of the writ- 
ing of the notes, and he now joined Stevens in 
furnishing testimony at the trial that fully ex- 
onerated the brave general from the hateful 
charge. But though friends and brother officers 
now crowded around him with sincere and cordial 
congratulations upon the happy termination of the 
affair, and with heartfelt expressions of regret at 
the unfortunate occurrence, the brave and gallant 
officer, crushed and almost heart-broken at the 
readiness with which his men and many of his 
fellow officers had accepted what seemed proofs 
of his guilt, never recovered from the hurt caused 
by the cruel charge. For though he nobly put 
aside his just resentment, and remained at his 
post of duty, guarding the Albemarle counties 
from danger of invasion until the withdrawal of 
the British troops from southeastern Virginia re- 
moved the danger, his life was ever afterwards 
shadowed by the mortification he had been called 
upon to undergo. 



107 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

In February, 1781, the enemy's army in Vir- 
ginia became such a source of terror to the people 
of that section that General Allen Jones was 
ordered to reinforce Gregory with troops from 
the Halifax District. But later that same month 
a greater danger confronted the patriot army in 
the South, and this order was countermanded. 
Most of the forces in the States were now hurried 
to the aid of General Greene, who had superseded 
Gates after the battle of Camden, and was leading 
Cornwallis an eventful chase across the Piedmont 
section of North Carolina. Cornwallis, after hav- 
ing been reinforced by General Leslie, had planned 
to invade North Carolina, conquer that State, 
march through Virginia and join Clinton in a 
fierce onslaught against Washington's army in 
the North. To foil the plans of the British officers 
Greene was concentrating the patriot troops in the 
South in the Catawba Valley, and Gregory was 
left with only a handful of men to hold the enemy 
at Norfolk in check. 

In June, General Gregory's situation was so des- 
perate that the Assembly again ordered General 
Allan Jones to send 400 men from Halifax Dis- 
trict to North West Bridge to reinforce Gregory ; 
and the latter officer was authorized to draft as 
many men as possible from the Edenton District. 

General Jones informed the Assembly that he 



108 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

would send the troops as soon as possible, but that 
Gregory would have to provide arms, as he had 
no means of furnishing equipments for them. 

Several engagements took place in June between 
the British and Americans in the Dismal Swamp 
region, and in one of them Gregory was repulsed 
and driven from his position. But in July he wrote 
to Colonel Blount reporting that his losses were 
trifling, and that he had regained his old post 
from the enemy. In August, 1781, a letter from 
General Gregory conveyed the joyful tidings that 
the enemy had evacuated Portsmouth. As his 
troops were no longer needed to guard against the 
danger of invasion from that direction, and as 
smallpox had broken out in his camp, General 
Gregory now released his men from duty, and they 
returned to their homes. 

The British army that had just left Portsmouth, 
was now on its way to Yorktown, whither Corn- 
wallis, after his fruitless chase of Greene, his dis- 
astrous victory at Guilford Courthouse, and his 
retreat to Wilmington, was now directing his 
army. There on the 19th of October the famous 
Battle of Yorktown was fought and Cornwallis 
and his entire army forced to surrender. 

This battle virtually ended the war; but peace 
did not come to Carolina immediately upon the 



109 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

surrender. The Tories in the State kept up a con- 
stant warfare upon their Whig neighbors, and in 
March, 1782, General Greene, who not long after 
the battle of Guilford Courthouse had won a 
decisive victory at Eutaw Springs, and was still 
in South Carolina, sent the alarming intelligence 
to the towns on the coast that the British had sent 
four vessels from Charleston harbor to plunder 
and burn New Bern and Edenton. To meet this 
unexpected emergency. General Rutherford was 
ordered to quell the Tories in the Cape Fear sec- 
tion, who were terrorizing the people in that re- 
gion. And in April, 1782, General Gregory re- 
ceived orders from General Burke to take 500 men 
to Edenton for the defense of that town, and to 
notify Count de Rochambeau as soon as the enemy 
should appear in Albemarle Sound. In August no 
sign of the British ships had as yet been seen, 
though the coast towns were still in daily dread of 
their arrival. Governor Martin, who had suc- 
ceeded Burke, wrote Gregory to purchase what- 
ever number of vessels the Edenton merchants 
considered necessary for the protection of the 
town, to buy cannon and to draft men to man the 
boats. 

But Edenton was spared the horror of a second 
raid such as she had suffered in 1781. In Decem- 
ber, 1782, the British army in South Carolina, 



110 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

which since the battle of Eutaw Springs had been 
hemmed in at Charleston by General Greene, 
finally embarked for England. The ships that had 
been keeping the towns near the coast in North 
Carolina in terror, departed with them, and the 
States that had for so many long and bitter years 
been engaged in the terrific struggle with Eng- 
land, were left to enjoy the fruits of their splendid 
victory without further molestation from the 
enemy. 

In September, 1783, the Treaty of Peace was 
signed by Great Britain, and the United States, 
separately and individually, were declared to be 
"free, sovereign and independent States." 

General Gregory's services to his. State did not 
end with the war. Eight times from 1778 to 1789, 
we find him representing Camden County in the 
State Senate, serving on important committees, 
and lending the weight of his influence to every 
movement tending toward the prosperity and wel- 
fare of the State. In the local affairs of his neigh- 
borhood he also took a prominent part. In 1789 
the Currituck Seminary was established at Indian 
Town, and Isaac Gregory and his friend and 
brother officer, Colonel Peter Dauge, were ap- 
pointed on the board of trustees of this school, 
which for many years was one of the leading edu- 
cational institutions of the Albemarle section. 



Ill 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

General Gregory lived at the Ferebee place in 
Camden County in a large brick house, known 
then, as now, as 'Fairfax Hall. The old building 
is still standing, a well known landmark in the 
county. 

A letter from James Iredell to his wife, written 
while this famous North Carolina judge was a 
guest at Fairfax, gives a pleasant account of an 
evening spent in General Gregory's home with 
Parson Pettigrew and Gideon Lamb, and also of 
the kindness and hospitality of the Camden people. 

In volume 2 of the Iredell letters this descrip- 
tion of General Gregory's personal appearance is 
given : 

"A lady, who remembers General Gregory well, 
says that he was a large, fine looking man. He 
was exceedingly polite, had a very grand air, and 
in dress was something of a fop." In the same 
volume the following interesting account of an 
incident in the life of the famous General is found : 
"General Gregory lived in his latter years so se- 
cluded a life and knew so little of events beyond 
his own family circle, that he addressed to a lady, 
the widow of Governor Stone, a letter making a 
formal proposal of marriage, full six months after 
her death." 

General Isaac Gregory was the son of General 
William Gregory, an officer who took a prominent 



112 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

part in the French and Indian Wars. He married 
Miss Elizabeth Whedbee, and had two • children, 
Sarah and Matilda. Sarah married Dempsey Bur- 
gess, of Camden, and Matilda married a young 
German, John Christopher Ehringhaus. Many of 
the descendants of this brave Revolutionary officer 
are living in the Albemarle region to-day, and 
claim with pride this ancestor, who, as Captain 
Ashe in his History of North Carolina says, "was 
one of the few who won honor at Camden, and 
whose good fame was never tarnished by a single 
unworthy action." 

The Sir Walter Raleigh Chapter of the Daught- 
ers of the Revolution have within the past year 
obtained from the United States government a 
simple stone which they have had placed to mark 
the grave of this gallant officer, who lies buried in 
the family graveyard at Fairfax. 



113 



CHAPTER XIII 

PERQUIMANS COUNTY — ''LAND OF BEAUTIFUL 

WOMEN/' AND THE COLONIAL TOWN 

OF HERTFORD 

FROM its hidden source in the southern fringe 
of the far-famed Dismal Swamp, the Per- 
quimans River, lovely as its Indian name, 
which, being interpreted, signifies ''the land of 
beautiful women," comes winding down. Past 
marshes green with flags and rushes and starred 
with flowers of every hue, through forests dense 
with pine and cypress, with gum and juniper, the 
amber waters of the ancient stream pursue their 
tranquil way. Lazily, but steadily and untiringly, 
the river journeys on in obedience to the eternal, 
insistent call of the sea, till its waves, meeting 
and mingling with those of the great sound and 
its numerous tributaries, finally find their way 
through the sand bars that bound our coast, to the 
stormy Atlantic. 

Save for the fields of corn and cotton that lie 
along its banks, and an occasional sawmill whose 
whirring wheels break at long intervals the silence 
of its wooded shores, the peaceful river through 
the greater part of its way is undisturbed by 
signs of man's presence. Only twice in its course 



114 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

do its banks resound to the hum of town and vil- 
lage life, once when shortly emerging from the 
Great Swamp, the river in its winding flows by the 
sleepy little Quaker village of Belvidere; and 
again when its tranquility is suddenly broken by 
the stir and bustle of mill and factory, upon 
whose existence depends the prosperity of the old 
colonial town of Hertford. There, the river, sud- 
denly as wide awake as the beautiful town by 
which it flows, changes its narrow, tortuous, leis- 
urely course, and broadening out from a slender 
stream, sweeps on to the sea, a river grown, whose 
shores from this point on lie apart from each 
other a distance of more than a mile. 

Of all the streams that flow down to the sea 
from Albemarle, none exceeds in beauty or historic 
interest the lovely Perquimans River. On its 
eastern banks lies Durant's Neck, the home of 
George Durant, the first settler in our State, who 
in 1661 left his Virginia home and came into Albe- 
marle; and being well pleased with the beauty 
and fertility of fair Wikacome, was content to 
abide thenceforth in that favored spot. 

On the banks of the streams flowing on either 
side of Wikacome, roamed an Indian tribe, the 
Yeopims, whose great chief Kilcokonen gave to 
George Durant the first deed for land ever re- 
corded in our State. Durant, his friend and com- 



115 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

rade, Samuel Pricklove, and their families and 
servants, proved to be the vanguard of a long pro- 
cession of settlers, who, following the footsteps of 
these first pioneers, made their homes upon the 
shores of the Albemarle streams. Soon the dense 
forests that stretched down to the river brinks 
fell beneath the axe of these home-seekers, and 
small farms and great plantations fringed the 
borders of the streams. 

At the narrows of the Perquimans, where the 
waters widen into a broad, majestic river, a 
sturdy pioneer, Henry Phillips (or Phelps) had 
built his home. Thither in the spring of 1672, 
came a missionary, William Edmundson, a friend 
and follower of George Fox, who some years be- 
fore had over in England founded the Society of 
Friends. Henry Phelps was a member of this 
Society also, and the meeting between the two 
godly men was a joyful one. 

During the ten years that had passed since the 
Indian Chief had signed his first grant of land to 
the white man, the settlers of Albemarle had had 
no opportunity of assembling together for public 
worship. Phelps, knowing how gladly the call 
would be answered, at the bidding of Edmundson, 
summoned such of his friends and neighbors as 
he could reach, to his home, to hear the Word 
preached by this zealous man of God. 



116 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Not since the days of little Virginia Dare had a 
body of Christian men and women met together 
in Carolina to offer in public worship their prayer 
and praises to the loving Father, who had led them 
safely over storm-tossed waters, through tangled 
wilderness, into this Land of Promise. Rough and 
uncultured as most of the congregation were, they 
listened quietly and reverently to the good mis- 
sionary, and received the Word with gladness. 
There were present at the meeting "one Tems and 
his wife," who earnestly entreated Edmundson to 
hold another service at their home three miles 
away. So the next day he journeyed to the home 
of Tems, and there another "blessed meeting" 
was held ; and there was founded a Society whose 
members were to be for many years the most 
prominent religious body in the State. 

In the fall of 1672, the hearts of the members 
of this infant church were gladdened by the tid- 
ings that George Fox himself was on his way to 
visit the little band of brethren in the wilds of 
Carolina. One cool, crisp October morning, the 
great preacher arrived. Again was the home of 
Phelps chosen for the meeting; but so great was 
the crowd that gathered to hear him that the 
house would not hold the congregation. Standing 
a little distance from Phelps' simple dwelling were 
two great cypress trees. Close down by the water's 



117 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

edge they grew, their feathery branches shading 
the rippling waves, and shielding the listeners 
from the glare of a sun whose rays had not yet 
lost their summer's heat. Under one of these 
trees the preacher stood, and spoke to the assem- 
bled crowd as the Spirit gave him utterance. It 
was a ''tender meeting," as Fox reports in his 
letters describing his stay in Perquimans. Many 
who were present became converts to the faith of 
Fox and Edmundson; and Perquimans County 
and her sister, Pasquotank, became for many 
years the stronghold of the Society of Friends in 
Carolina. 

For a number of years after George Fox's visit 
to Perquimans, the Quakers were the only relig- 
ious body in the colony that regularly assembled 
its members together for divine service. Their 
ministers were for the most part from the congre- 
gation itself; no salary was demanded by them; 
and the home of some Friends was the scene of 
their religious meetings. In a new country where 
ready money is a scarce commodity, a church that 
could be conducted without any expenditure of 
cash could more easily take root, than one whose 
existence depended upon a certain amount, how- 
ever small, of filthy lucre. 

The Lords Proprietors, members for the most 
part of the Church of England, were too intent 



118 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

upon extracting wealth from their colony in Caro- 
lina to be willing to expend any of their gains for 
the good of the colonists. Disregarding the peti- 
tions of their officers in Albemarle, who saw the 
great need for missionaries in the struggling set- 
tlements, they refused to become responsible for 
the salary of a minister. 

But after a while the Society for the Propaga- 
tion of the Gospel in foreign parts took hold of the 
matter, and in 1702 a church was built in Chowan, 
near where Edenton now stands. By 1709 Rev. 
Mr. Gordon, who was one of the two ministers 
sent out by the S. P. G., writes to the secretary 
of the Society from Perquimans : 

"In Perquimans there is a compact little church, 
built with care and express, and better than that 
in Chowan. It continues yet unfinished, by reason 
of the death of Major Swann, 1707, who fostered 
the building of this church." 

Among the vestrymen of this new parish may 
be found the following names: Francis Forbes, 
Colonel Maurice Moore, Captain Hecklefield, 
Thomas Hardy, Captain Richard Saunderson, 
Henry Clayton, Joseph Jessups, Samuel Phelps 
and Richard Whedbee. Most of these gentlemen 
were men of note in the colony, and many of their 
descendants are now living in Perquimans County. 

That the wealthy planters in Albemarle felt a 



119 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

certain responsibility for the spiritual welfare of 
their slaves, was shown by the fact that master 
and slave alike gathered together to join in the 
services held by the early missionaries of the 
Church of England ; and that the master willingly 
allowed his servant to share in the blessings of 
the sacraments of the church. A letter from Rev. 
Mr. Taylor, written from Perquimans in 1719, 
records that he had just "baptized a young woman, 
slave of Mr. Duckinfield, to whom I have taught 
the whole of the church catechism." 

But the letter further reveals that our early 
colonists cherished their worldly possessions fully 
as fondly as their descendants, who pursue with 
avidity the chase after the dollar. And when 
it came to the question of the slave's spiritual 
welfare, or the master's temporal prosperity, the 
master did not hesitate to show which he con- 
sidered of the most importance. For, as Mr. Tay- 
lor writes, when it was rumored in 1719 that the 
General Assembly of that year had decreed that all 
baptized slaves should be set free ; and when, im- 
mediately, and by a strange coincidence, the rever- 
end gentleman was suddenly besieged by bands of 
men and women, all loudly clamoring to receive 
the rite of holy baptism, Duckinfield and others of 
the planters prudently restrained the poor darkies 
from entering the church's folds until that law 
could be repealed. 

120 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

In secular as well as religious affairs, Perqui- 
mans precinct in those early days took an active 
part. Men of political and social prominence re- 
sided within her borders, and at their homes, for 
lack of other shelter for public gatherings, much 
of the business of the colony, legislative and judi- 
cial, was transacted. 

As early as 1677 the population of Albemarle 
had grown so numerous that the settlers found 
themselves strong enough to successfully resist 
the oppressive rule of the unworthy governors set 
over them by the Lords Proprietors. And in that 
year, led by John Culpeper and George Durant, 
a revolt against the tyrannical Miller, which be- 
gan in Pasquotank, spread through the surround- 
ing precincts. 

Among the men from Perquimans who took 
part in this disturbance, known in history as Cul- 
peper's Rebellion, were George Durant, Alexan- 
der Lillington, Samuel Pricklove, Jenkins, Sher- 
rell and Greene. So successfully did they and 
their comrades strive against Miller's tyranny, 
that that worthy was driven out of Carolina, and 
the reins of government fell into the hands of 
Culpeper and Durant. And at the home of the 
latter on Durant's Neck, a fair and equitable peo- 
ple's government was organized, the first of the 
kind framed in America. 



121 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Alexander Lillington, who lent the weight of 
his wealth and influence to the people in their 
struggle against Miller, was a rich planter who in 
1698 bought a tract of land from Stephen Pane 
and John Foster, on Yeopim Creek, and soon be- 
came one of the leading men in the colony. His 
descendants moved to New Hanover, and a name- 
sake of his in later years won for himself undying 
fame at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. 

At the homes of Captain John Hecklefield and 
Captain Richard Saunderson, the General Assem- 
bly and the Governor's Council often convened. 
The famous Glover-Cary controversy was tempor- 
arily settled at the home of the former, by the 
Assembly of 1708, while Captain Saunderson's 
dwelling sheltered the Assembly of 1715, whose 
important acts were for the first time formally 
recorded and published. The courts were fre- 
quently held at the home of Dinah Maclenden, and 
James Thickpenny. James Gates, Captain James 
Cole and Captain Anthony Dawson also bore their 
share in entertaining the judicial assemblies. 

As the population of the colony increased, 
facilities for carrying on commerce and for trav- 
eling through the country became one of the cry- 
ing needs of the day. The numerous rivers of 
Albemarle made provision for ferries imperative, 
and as early as 1700, we find record made of "Ye 



122 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

ferre over ye mane road" in Perquimans. In 
1706 it is recorded that Samuel Phelps was ap- 
pointed "Keeper of ye Toll Boke at ye Head of 
Perquimans River." 

A council held at the home of Captain Saunder- 
son in 1715 ordered: ''That for the better con- 
venience of people passing through the country, 
a good and sufficient ferry be duly kept and at- 
tended over Perquimans River, from Mrs. Anne 
Wilson's to James Thickpenny, and that Mrs. Wil- 
son do keep the same, and that no other persons 
presume to ferry over horse or man within five 
miles above or below that place." 

As time went on, the crowds attending the 
courts and Assemblies became too large to be 
accommodated in private dwellings. As early as 
1722, the General Assembly ordered a court-house 
to be built at Phelps Point, now the town of Hert- 
ford, and tradition states that the old building 
was erected on the point near the bridge, where 
the home of Mr. Thomas McMullan now stands. 

One of the most interesting spots in Perqui- 
mans County is the strip of land lying between the 
Perquimans and the Yeopim rivers, known as Har- 
vey's Neck. This was the home of the Harveys, 
men who for over a century bore an important 
part in the history of our State. It was in older 
days, as now, a fair and fertile land. Herds of 



123 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

deer wandered through its forests; and great 
flocks of swan and wild geese floated upon its sil- 
ver streams, feeding upon the sweet grass which 
then grew in those rivers. The waters were then 
salt, but with the choking up of the inlets that 
let in the saline waves of the Atlantic, the grass 
disappeared, and with it the wild fowl who win- 
tered there. 

Of all the members of the famous Harvey fam- 
ily whose homes were builded on this spot, none 
proved more worthy of the fame he won than 
John Harvey, son of Thomas Harvey and Eliza- 
beth Coles. 

Elected when just of age to the Assembly of 
1746, he continued to serve his State in a public 
capacity until his death in 1775. 

Resisting the tyrannical endeavor of Governor 
Dobbs to tax the people against their rights, he 
nevertheless stood by the same governor in his 
efforts to raise men and money for the French 
and Indian War. Serving as Speaker of the House 
in 1766, he took an active part in opposing the 
Stamp Act, and boldly declared in the Assembly 
that North Carolina would not pay those taxes. 
In the Assembly of 1769 he proposed that Caro- 
lina should form a Non-Importation Association; 
and when Governor Tryon thereupon angrily dis- 
missed the Assembly and ordered its members 



124 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

home, Harvey called a convention independent of 
the Governor, and the association was formed. 

When Governor Martin refused to call the As- 
sembly of 1774, for fear that it would elect dele- 
gates to the Continental Congress, John Harvey 
declared: ''Then the people will call an Assembly 
themselves"; and following their intrepid leader, 
the people did call the convention of 1774, elected 
their delegates to Philadelphia, and openly and 
boldly joined and led their sister colonies in the 
gigantic struggle with the mother country that 
now began. 

In the time of Boston's need, when her ports 
were closed by England's orders, and her people 
were threatened with starvation, John Harvey 
and Joseph Hewes together caused the ship "Pene- 
lope" to be loaded with corn and meal, flour and 
pork, which they solicited from the generous peo- 
ple of Albemarle, and sent it with words of cheer 
and sympathy to their brethren in the New Eng- 
land town. In 1775 Harvey again braved the 
anger of the Royal Governor and called another 
people's convention, whose purpose and work was 
to watch and circumvent the tyrant in his en- 
deavor to crush the patriots in the State. 

'The Father of the Revolution" in Carolina, he 
was to his native State what Patrick Henry was to 
Virginia, in the early days of the Revolution, and 



125 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

what Hancock and Adams were to Massachusetts. 
His untimely death, in 1775, caused by a fall from 
a horse, was deeply mourned by patriots through- 
out the land. 

Among other eminent sons of Perquimans dur- 
ing the Revolutionary period the names of Miles 
Harvey, Colonel of the regiment from that county ; 
William Skinner, Lieutenant-Colonel of the same 
regiment; Thomas Harvey, Major, and Major 
Richard Clayton, are recorded in history. Among 
the delegates to the People's Convention called by 
Harvey and Johnston we find the Harveys, Whed- 
bees, Blounts, Skinners and Moores, men whose 
names were prominent then as now in the social 
and political life of the State. 

As time went on, Phelps Point at the Narrows 
of the Perquimans River became so thickly popu- 
lated that by June, 1746, a petition was presented 
to the General Assembly, praying for an act to 
be passed to lay out 100 acres of land in Perqui- 
mans, including Phelps Point, for a town and a 
town commons. 

But a disturbance arose in the State about that 
time concerning the right of the northern coun- 
ties to send five delegates each to the Assembly, 
while the southern counties were allowed to send 
only two. Governor Gabriel Johnson sided with 
the southern section, and ordered the Assembly to 



126 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

meet at Wilmington in November, 1746, on which 
occasion he and the southern delegates proposed 
to make a strong fight to reduce the representation 
from the Albemarle counties. 

The northern counties, tenaciously clinging to 
their rights, established in the early days of the 
colony when the counties south of Albemarle 
Sound had not been organized, refused to send 
delegates to this Assembly ; whereupon that body, 
though a majority of its members were absent, 
passed an act reducing the representation from 
the Albemarle region to two members from each 
county. Indignant at this act, which they con- 
sidered illegal, the citizens in the northern coun- 
ties refused to subscribe to it, and for eight years 
declined to send any delegates at all to the Assem- 
bly; and the bill for establishing a town in Per- 
quimans was heard from no more until the trouble 
between the two sections was settled. 

Finally the people of Albemarle sent a petition 
to George III, praying him to restore their rights 
in the General Assembly, and the King graciously 
granted their request. In 1758 an Assembly met 
at New Bern, at which delegates from all sections 
of the colony were present; and in answer to a 
petition presented by John Harvey, it passed an 
act for the erection of a town at Phelps Point in 
Perquimans County. 



127 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

The little village was called Hertford, a word 
of Saxon origin, signifying Red Ford. It was 
named for the Marquis of Hertford, an English 
noble who moved for the repeal of the Stamp Act 
in 1766, and who was ambassador at Paris in the 
reign of George III, and Lord Lieutenant of Ire- 
land. 

The settlement at Phelps Point was already an 
important rendezvous for the dwellers in the 
county. The cypress trees under which Fox had 
stood and preached to the little band of brethren 
still stood, as they stand to-day, bending lovingly 
over the stream, close to the end of the point. A 
little Church of England chapel farther down had 
since 1709 been the center of the religious life of 
its members in the county, and the court-house 
on the point since 1722 had been the scene of the 
political and judicial gatherings in Perquimans. 

The Assembly of 1762, realizing the importance 
of the little town to the community, decreed that a 
public ferry should be established "from Newby's 
Point to Phelp's Point where the court-house now 
stands," and in 1766 Seth Sumner, William Skin- 
ner, Francis Nixon, John Harvey and Henry Clay- 
ton were appointed trustees of the ferry ; a three- 
penny tax was laid on all taxable persons to defray 
the expenses of the ferry, and "All persons cross- 
ing to attend vestry meetings, elections, military 



128 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

musters, court martials and sessions of the court" 
were to be carried over free of charge. 

The site of the town, described in Colonial 
Records as "healthy, pleasantly situated, well 
watered and commodious for commerce," was the 
property of John Phelps, who gave his consent to 
the laying off of 100 acres for the town on condi- 
tion that he should retain his own house and lot, 
and four lots adjoining him. The public ferry 
having fallen into his hands, the further condi- 
tion was made that the town should allow no ferry 
other than his to be run so long as he complied 
with the ferry laws. The subscribers for the lots 
were ordered to build within three years, one well- 
framed or brick house at least 16 feet square ; and 
in one month from purchase, were to pay the 
trustees the sum of 45 shillings for each lot. 

As early as 1754, before the little settlement be- 
gan to assume the airs of a town, the old Eagle 
Tavern still standing on Church street, was a 
registered hotel; and there when court week ap- 
peared on the calendar, the representative men of 
the county and the surrounding precincts would 
gather. 

Quiet Quaker folk from Piney Woods, eight 
miles down from Newby's Point, Whites and Nich- 
olsons, Albertsons, Newbys and Symmes, jogged 
along the country roads behind their sleek, well- 



129 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

fed nags, to answer with serene yea or nay the 
questions asked on witness stand or in jury room. 
Powdered and bewigged judge and lawyer, high 
and mighty King's officers from Edenton or New 
Bern, or Bath, brilliant in gay uniform, rolled pon- 
derously thither in cumbersome coaches. Leav- 
ing their great plantations on the adjoining necks 
in the hands of their overseers, Harveys and 
Skinners, Blounts and Whedbees, Winslows and 
Gordons, Nixons and Woods and Leighs, dashed 
up to the doors of the tavern on spirited steeds. 
Hospitable townsfolk hurried to and fro, greeting 
the travelers, and causing mine host of the inn 
much inward concern, lest their cordial invitation 
lure from his door the guest whose bill he could 
see, in his mind's eye, pleasantly lengthen, as the 
crowded court docket slowly cleared. 

Very sure were the guests at the tavern that 
horse and man would be well cared for by the 
genial landlord ; for the law required that the host 
of Eagle Tavern should give ample compensation 
for the gold he pocketed. When business was 
ended, the strangers within his gates wended their 
way homeward. No skimping of the bill of fare, 
no inattention to the comfort of the wayfarer did 
the landlord dare allow, lest his license be taken 
from him for violation of the tavern laws. 

Many an illustrious guest the ancient inn has 



130 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

known, and a story cherished by the Hertford 
people ascribes to the quaint old structure the 
honor of having on one occasion sheltered be- 
neath its roof the illustrious "Father of his 
Country," George Washington. 

Whether our first President came to Hertford 
on business connected with lands in the Dismal 
Swamp in which he was interested, or whether he 
tarried at the old tavern while on his triumphal 
journey through the South in 1791, no one now 
knows, but the room is still shown, and the tale 
still told of the great man's stay therein. 

Diagonally across the street from the Eagle 
Tavern, at the end of the yard enclosing the old 
Harvey home, may be seen two great stones which 
are said to mark the grave of a mighty Indian 
chief. Possibly Kilcokonen, friend of George Du- 
rant, lies buried there. The Hertford children in 
olden days, when tales of ghost and goblin were 
more readily believed than they are to-day, used 
to thrill with delicious fear whenever in the dusk 
of the evening they passed the spot, and warily 
they would step over the stones, half-dreading, 
half-hoping to see, as legend said was possible, the 
spirit of the old warrior rise from the grave, 
swinging his gory tomahawk and uttering his 
blood-chilling war cry. 

During the long years that have passed since 



131 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

the white man came into Albemarle, old Perqui- 
mans has borne an enviable part in making the 
history of our State. 

Hertford itself felt little of the fury of the 
storm of the War of Secession, though during the 
awful cataclysm the peaceful Perquimans was 
often disturbed by the gunboats of the Northern 
Army. One brief battle was fought in the town, 
in which one man was killed on each side. And 
the old residents still love to boast of the heroism 
shown by the courageous Hertford women, who, 
while the skirmish was going on, came out on their 
piazzas, and, heedless of the shot and shell flying 
thick and fast around them, cheered on the sol- 
diers battling to defend their homes. 

A ball from one of the gunboats on the river, 
while this skirmish was taking place, went 
through one of the houses down near the shore 
and tore the covering from the bed on which the 
mistress of the house had just been lying. 

The cruel war at last was over, the darker days 
of Reconstruction passed heavily and stressfully 
by; the South began to recover from the ruin 
wrought by the awful struggle and its aftermath ; 
and in the quiet years that followed, the Spirit of 
God brooded over her rivers, hills and plains, and 
brought peace and prosperity to the troubled land. 
Her farms were tilled again, the wheels of mills 



132 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

and factories were set whirling, and new business 
enterprises offered to the laboring man oppor- 
tunities to earn a fair living. 

And the old colonial town of Hertford, sharing 
with her sister towns and cities in the Southland 
the prosperity for which her children for many 
weary, painful years had so bravely and man- 
fully striven, sees the dawn of a new day, bright 
with the promise of a happy future for her sons 
and daughters. 



133 



CHAPTER XIV 

CURRITUCK, THE HAUNT OF THE WILD FOWL 

CURRITUCK County is known the country 
over as the sportsman's paradise. Thither 
when the first sharp frost gives warning 
that the clear autumn skies will soon be banked 
with gray snow clouds, the wild fowl from the far 
North come flocking. And as the swift-winged 
procession skims through the starry skies, and 
the hoarse cry of the aerial voyagers resounds 
over head, then do the dwellers in eastern Albe- 
marle know for a surety that the year is far 
spent, and the winter days close at hand. 

Guided by unerring instinct, the feathered 
tribes of the North pursue "through the boundless 
sky their certain flight" till the shallow waters of 
Currituck Sound and its reedy shores greet their 
eager sight. There they find the wild celery and 
other aquatic plants upon which they love to feed, 
growing in abundance ; and there they make their 
winter home "and rest and scream among their 
fellows," preferring the risk of death at the hands 
of the sportsman to the certain starvation that 
would confront them in their native Arctic clime. 

Vast as are to-day the clouds of wild fowl that 
every year descend upon the shores and waters of 



134 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Currituck, their numbers were far greater in 
years long gone, before the white man with shot 
and gun came roving among the reedy marshes. 
Long before George Durant's advent into the 
State, the Indians with that aptness for nomen- 
clature for which they are noted, had given to this 
haunt of the wild fowl the name of "Coretonk," 
or Currituck, as now called, in imitation of the cry 
of the feathered visitors. 

But not alone as the winter home of the winged 
creatures of the Northern wilds was Currituck 
noted in the early days of our State. This county, 
formerly much larger than it is to-day, for many 
years embraced the region known as Dare County, 
and to Currituck belongs the distinction of having 
once included within its borders the spot upon 
which Raleigh's colonies tried to establish their 
homes. 

The history of that event is too well known to 
bear repetition. The story of Amadas' and Bar- 
lowe's expedition, of Ralph Lane's bold adventures 
in exploration of Albemarle Sound, Chowan River 
and Chesapeake Bay, of the return of his dis- 
appointed colony to England in Drake's vessels, 
and the tragic fate of little Virginia Dare and of 
John White's colony, have all been told in fiction, 
song and verse. 

The failure of Raleigh's colonies to establish a 



135 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

permanent settlement in the New World discour- 
aged the English for many years from making 
any further attempts to settle America. From 
1590, the date of Governor White's return to Roan- 
oke, and of his unsuccessful search for the "lost 
colony," that lovely island for many years disap- 
pears from the white man's gaze; and save for a 
few scattered, unrecorded settlements in northern 
Albemarle, Carolina itself was almost unknown to 
the world. 

But in September, 1654, according to the Colon- 
ial Records, a young fur trader from Virginia had 
the misfortune to lose his sloop in which he was 
about to embark for the purpose of trading with 
the Indians in the Albemarle country. For rea- 
sons not stated he supposed she had gone to Roan- 
oke, so he hired a small boat, and with three com- 
panions set out in search of the runaway vessel. 
"They entered at Coratoke Inlet, ten miles to the 
north of Cape Henry," so reads the ancient chron- 
icle, "and so went to Roanoke Island, where, or 
near thereabouts, they found the Great Com- 
mander of those parts with his Indians a-hunting, 
who received them civilly and showed them the 
ruins of Sir Walter Raleigh's fort, from which I 
received a sure token of their being there." 

A few months before this journey of the young 
fur trader, Charles II had bestowed upon eight of 



136 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

his favorites all the territory in America lying be- 
tween the thirty-first and thirty-sixth parallels of 
latitude, a princely gift indeed, and worthy of the 
loyal friends who had devoted their lives and 
fortunes to the Stuart cause during the dark days 
when that cause seemed hopelessly lost. This 
grant embraced the land adjacent to the north 
shore of Albemarle Sound, and extending to 
Florida; but it failed to include a strip of terri- 
tory about thirty miles broad, lying between the 
thirty-sixth degree and the Virginia line. In this 
fertile region George Durant and other settlers 
had as early as 1661 established their homes, buy- 
ing from Kilcokonen, the great Chief of the Yeo- 
pims, their right to the lands; and there these 
hardy pioneers were swiftly converting the pri- 
meval wilderness into fertile and productive fields. 
Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, looked with 
covetous eye upon this fair strip of land, and with 
a view to planting settlements there in order to 
establish Virginia's claim to the territory, he had 
offered in the name of King Charles extensive 
grants in this region to planters who would bring 
a certain number of people into Albemarle. In 
1663 Berkeley granted to John Harvey 600 acres 
of land "lying in a small creek called Curratuck 
(probably Indian Creek to-day), falling into the 
River Kecoughtancke (now North River), which 



137 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

falls in the Carolina River (known to-day as Albe- 
marle Sound). The land was given Mr. Harvey 
for bringing into the colony twelve new settlers." 

Many other settlers in this region had acquired 
their lands by patents from Virginia; but after 
the King's gift to his friends, Berkeley, himself 
one of the Lords Proprietors, was no longer de- 
sirous to consider the Albemarle region a part of 
the Virginia Colony; and henceforth the grants 
of land were all issued in the name of the Lords 
Proprietors. For several years, however, the 
Albemarle counties were really separate, and to 
all practical purposes, independent territory. The 
proprietors had no legal claim to the region, and 
there was nothing in Virginia's charter to show 
that she could rightfully lay claim to it. Never- 
theless the proprietors did claim it, and authorized 
Berkeley to appoint a governor for that region. 
Berkeley therefore journeyed into the settlement, 
organized a government, and appointed Drum- 
mond Governor of Albemarle. 

In 1665 the Lords, realizing the confusion that 
would arise unless their claim to the land was 
made good, induced the King to include Albemarle 
in their grant. 

But Virginia was by no means ready to relin- 
quish her claim to this promising settlement, and 
after Berkeley's day a long struggle began be- 



138 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

tween the Royal Governors of that colony over 
the question as to who should collect the rents and 
taxes from the inhabitants of this disputed tract. 
As late as 1689 the quarrel v^as still going on, and 
the Governor and Council of Virginia appealed to 
William and Mary to restrain the Governor of 
North Carolina from collecting taxes in Currituck 
County ; and the question of the boundary line be- 
tween Virginia and Carolina still being uncertain, 
the sovereigns were asked to have the bounds sur- 
veyed and settled. 

Not for many years was this request regarded, 
though in 1711 commissioners from Virginia 
went to Currituck to meet those from Carolina 
for the purpose of surveying the land and estab- 
lishing the boundary between the two colonies. 
For some reason the Carolina commissioners 
failed to appear, and not till 1728 did the work of 
settling the disputed boundaries really begin. In 
March of that year commissioners from the two 
colonies met on the north shore of Currituck 
Inlet, and a cedar post on the seashore was fixed 
as the beginning of the line. The result of the 
survey was that many thousand acres and several 
hundred people whom Virginia had claimed were 
found to be in the Albemarle District. 

This was naturally a great disappointment to 
Virginia, and equally a matter of rejoicing to 



139 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Carolina, not only on account of the extra terri- 
tory and inhabitants she now could lawfully claim, 
but because Currituck Inlet, the only entrance 
from the sea north of Roanoke Island, was there- 
after indisputably thrown within her borders. 
This inlet, now closed by the shifting sands that 
form the long sand bars on the Carolina coast, was 
of great importance in the early days of the col- 
ony, forming an entrance from the sea to the 
sound through which the trading vessels could 
slip. So necessary was this inlet to the commerce 
of the colony that in 1726 the General Assembly 
ordered that the powder money accruing to the 
government by vessels coming into Currituck Inlet 
should be appropriated for beaconing and staking 
out the channel at that entrance. But by 1731, the 
steady beating of the waves on the coast had de- 
posited a bank of sand at the inlet. Governor Bur- 
rington wrote to the Board of Trade that it was no 
longer possible for large vessels to enter there, 
nor at Roanoke Inlet, which had also become so 
dangerous that no one cared to use it, but that the 
vessels now were obliged to go around by Ocra- 
coke Inlet to make their exit and entrance from 
and into Albemarle Sound. The closing of the 
inlet was such a serious misfortune to the State 
that time and again efforts were made to reopen it, 
and the Assembly of 1761 appropriated money for 



140 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

that purpose. But ''man's control stops with the 
sea" ; the waves continued to drop their burden of 
sand at the entrance to the inlet, and finally the 
attempt was abandoned. The great Atlantic had 
made the entrance, and the same force had closed 
it, seemingly, forever, though small sloops still 
slipped in and out over the bar until 1821, when 
it was entirely closed. So necessary was an outlet 
to the sea to the people of the Albemarle region, 
that the Assembly of 1786 passed an act providing 
for the digging of a canal from Currituck Sound 
to the head of North River; from thence vessels 
could go up North River and into Elizabeth River, 
and on to Norfolk, and so to the sea. This pro- 
posed plan was not carried out until many years 
later; for it was not until almost 1858 that the 
Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, following closely 
the route proposed in 1786, was dug, though 
long before that date the Dismal Swamp Canal 
had been opened, and a flourishing traffic was car- 
ried on between Virginia and Carolina waters. 

A traveler in eastern Carolina, writing for Har- 
per's Magazine in 1858, an account of his journey- 
ings in the Albemarle region, gives a most inter- 
esting description of his trip on the Albemarle and 
Chesapeake Canal. The Calypso was the first 
steamer to go through the canal, and on her 
maiden journey from Norfolk to Currituck County 



141 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

in 1858, she was the obser\'ed of all obsers^ers. 
Furthermore, continues Mr. Bruce, the writer of 
the article, who stopped at Currituck Courthouse 
for several days, "We must say that for average 
culture, intelligence and physical vigor, the people 
of this 'kingdom by the sea' will hold their own 
with most other communities, North or South." 
Currituck being the sea frontier of Albemarle, 
her waterways were naturally of prime import- 
ance to the State; but other matters of as great 
importance are found in reading the annals of 
this wind-blown, wave-washed county. In relig- 
ious affairs we find that she early begins to make 
history. In 1708 Governor Glover wrote to the 
Bishop of London: 'Tasquotank and Currituck 
are now under the care of Rev. James Adams, to 
their general satisfaction, to whom they have pre- 
sented the small provision of 30 pounds a year." 
In 1710 Rev. James Adams informed the S. P. 
G. A. that he had been living for over a year in 
the home of a Mr. Richard Saunderson, a former 
member of the Governor's Council, who had made 
a wiU in which, after his own and his wife's death, 
he had left considerable legacy for the encourage- 
ment of a minister in Currituck Parish, where he 
lived, namely: "A good plantation with all the 
houses and furniture, slaves, and their increase, 
and stock of cows, sheep and horses and hogs, with 



142 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

their increase forever." This was later declared 
void by the courts on account of Sanderson's in- 
capacity. 

So acceptable did Mr. Adams prove to the 
parish, that in 1710 the vestry wrote a letter of 
thanks to Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
thanking him for sending this godly clergyman 
of the Church of England to the parish. In 1712, 
on the death of Mr. Adams, the Rev. Mr. Rains- 
ford was sent to take his place. He wrote back to 
England that on reaching Currituck he found a 
small chapel at Indian Town, and there in June of 
that year he "preached to vast crowds" that came 
to hear him. 

In 1715 a legally appointed vestry was organ- 
ized for the parish of Currituck, among the most 
prominent of whose members were Richard Saun- 
derson. Colonel William Reed, Foster Jarvis, Wil- 
liam Swann, and William Williams. The services 
of the Church of England were conducted in the 
county during those early days with as much regu- 
larity as the scattered congregations and the lack 
of facilities for traveling in that water-bound 
region permitted. In 1774 the General Assembly 
passed an act to establish St. Martin's chapel at 
Belleville, and Isaac Gregory, Peter Dauge and a 
Mr. Ferebee were appointed to take this matter 
in charge. In educational matters Currituck was 



143 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

wonderfully alert in colonial days for a county so 
inaccessible from the rest of the State. Probably 
the most noted of her schools was the Indian Town 
Academy built in 1761 by William Ferebee, one of 
the most prominent men in North Carolina, on his 
plantation, called by the Indians "Culong," and 
by the whites, "Indian Town." Many of the stu- 
dents at this academy were in later days to be 
counted among the State's most famous and useful 
men. William Ferebee's family alone furnished 
six members of the Legislature, three Revolu- 
tionary officers, and one Colonel in the Confed- 
eracy in the War of Secession. For a hundred 
years this famous old school kept up its career of 
usefulness, but in the so-called ''negro raid" of 
1863 it met the fate that befell so many of the 
South's cherished institutions during the dark 
days of 1861-1865, and was reduced to ashes by 
the incendiary's torch. 

Another well known school in Indian Town, the 
most prominent settlement in Currituck in colon- 
ial days, was the Currituck Seminary of Learning, 
which was built in 1789, and which numbered 
among its trustees Isaac Gregory, Peter Dauge, 
and William Ferebee. This building served the 
triple purpose of school, church and Masons' Hall, 
the upper story being used for holding church ser- 
vice, and by the Masons for their meetings, and 



144 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

the lower for the school. The principal of this 
school was called the provost, a high-sounding title 
which must have made even the most insignificant 
of pedagogues feel proud and important. Among 
the teachers employed at this institution during 
the later years of its existence was Ezekiel Gil- 
man, of Massachusetts, a graduate of Harvard, 
who came to Currituck in 1840 and who taught in 
Currituck and Camden fifty consecutive years. 
Mr. Oilman is still well and affectionately remem- 
bered by citizens of these counties, who as lads 
were fortunate enough to be his pupils. Though 
somewhat eccentric in manner and dress, he was 
a man of deep learning, whose kindness of heart 
was proverbial throughout the counties which 
were the scene of his labors. 

When the storm of the Revolutionary War broke 
over the American Colonies, the men of Currituck 
came gallantly to the front, and with comrade sol- 
diers from the other colonies doggedly and persist- 
ently fought the foe till the last British trooper 
was driven from the land, and independence was 
not only declared, but won. Few counties in the 
State gave more freely of her sons than did this 
county by the sea. Few can show a longer list of 
brave and gallant officers. Among the most noted 
of these were the three sons of William Ferebee, 
of Culong Plantation, Joseph, William and Samuel. 



145 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Joseph was a Lieutenant in Colonel Jarvis' Tenth 
North Carolina Militia, and was at Valley Forge 
during the terrible winter of 1777-'78. There is a 
family tradition that he killed General Fordyce, 
of the British Army, at the Battle of Great Bridge, 
near Norfolk. William was appointed Captain in 
the Seventh Regiment of Continentals from North 
Carolina, and was later a member of the Conven- 
tion of 1789, which ratified the Federal Constitu- 
tion. Samuel Ferebee served as sergeant and en- 
sign in the companies of Captain William Russell 
and Colonel Samuel Jarvis. He volunteered in 
Captain Joseph Ferebee's company, was ensign 
under Captain James Phillips, and was commis- 
sioned lieutenant, and collected troops by order of 
General Gregory for Baron Von Steuben. Samuel 
Ferebee was also the last surviving member of the 
Fayetteville Convention, which ratified the Fed- 
eral Constitution. He was married three times, 
and as the family chronicle quaintly puts it, "was 
always married on Sunday and on the fourteenth 
day of the month." 

Among the prominent families of Currituck 
during the colonial and Revolutionary days, as 
well as in our own times, was the Jarvis family, 
whose members have been men of note in the State 
since her history began. 

At the two conventions, called at New Bern by 



146 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

John Harvey, in 1774-'75, Samuel Jarvis repre- 
sented his county, and he also figured prominently 
in the Halifax Convention that framed our State 
Constitution. In 1775 he was appointed Colonel 
of the Minute Men from Currituck, in 1777 he 
was the recruiting officer from his county, and in 
1779 he received his commission as Colonel of the 
militia, by the advice of the Governor's Coun- 
cil, in place of Colonel Perkins, who had recently 
died. During this year Jarvis wrote to Governor 
Ashe, asking that he would grant the petition of 
the men living on the ''Banks," who had asked to 
be excused from enlisting. The dwellers on the 
coast were exposed to attacks from the enemy, 
and should the husbands and fathers of that sec- 
tion of the county be forced to the field, their 
homes would be defenceless. How great the dan- 
ger was had been realized a few days before Jarvis 
wrote this letter, for a British ship had entered 
the inlet, burned two vessels belonging to the pa- 
triots, and killed the cattle in the nearby marshes. 
The Governor granted the petition, and seeing the 
peril to which the dwellers on the "Banks" were 
exposed, he ordered ammunition and food to be 
sent to Jarvis for their use and protection. 

The names of Thomas Jarvis, Judge of the Ad- 
miralty Court of Currituck, and later Lieutenant 
Colonel in Samuel Jarvis' regiment, and of John 



147 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Jarvis, First Lieutenant in an independent com- 
pany stationed between Currituck and Roanoke 
inlets for the safeguard of the coast section, are 
also familiar to students of the Revolutionary his- 
tory of our State ; while in recent times ex-Gover- 
nor Thomas Jarvis, in his services to the South 
during the War between the States, his educa- 
tional campaign while Governor of North Caro- 
lina, his distinguished career as Minister to Brazil 
and as one of the most prominent members of the 
State Bar, has added further distinction to the 
honored name he bears. 

Throughout the Revolution, from the Battle of 
Great Bridge, where her men fought gallantly in 
repelling Lord Dunmore's invasion, through the 
siege of Charleston, in the long and dreary winter 
at Valley Forge, on the fatal field of Camden, and 
in many other important crises of the war, the sol- 
diers of Currituck were found in the front ranks 
of the American army, lustily shouting the "battle- 
cry of freedom." And not until the last British 
trooper had left our shores did they lay down their 
arms and return to their long neglected and de- 
serted fields and farms. 

But though the county gave freely of her sons 
to the American ranks, there were some within 
her borders who deserted the cause, and either 
openly or secretly sympathized with the enemy. 



148 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

The most noted of these Tories was Thomas 
McKnight, who showed his colors early in the 
struggle. McKnight was a prominent citizen of 
Indian Town. This colonial settlement was built 
on land reserved by the Lords Proprietors in 
1704 to Yeopim Indians, whose chief town was 
called by them *'Culong." In 1774 these Indians, 
with permission of the General Assembly, sold 
their lands, and with their king, John Durant, left 
the State. The lands were bought by Thomas 
McKnight, Gideon Lamb, Peter Dauge, Major 
Taylor Jones, John Humphries, William Ferebee, 
and Thomas Pool Williams, all Revolutionary sol- 
diers or members of the legislative bodies before 
or after the war. 

A white settlement grew up on the site of an- 
cient ''Culong,'' and the name of the red man's vil- 
lage was changed to Indian Town, in memory of 
its former inhabitants. 

McKnight represented Currituck at the New 
Bern Convention of 1775, and there refusing to 
sign the document approving the Continental Con- 
gress at Philadelphia, and withdrawing from the 
Convention, he was accused of being a Tory by the 
House and denounced as a traitor to his country. 

Though in an open letter to Joseph Jones, of 
Pasquotank, McKnight indignantly denied the 
charges against his loyalty to America, the Hali- 



149 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

fax Convention of 1770 ordered his estate to be 
confiscated and rented out for benefit of the State, 
by Isaac Gregory, William Ferebee, and Abram 
Harrison. An amusing story is told of how 
McKnight acquired one of his plantations in Cur- 
rituck. John Durant, the Chief of the Yeopims, 
had very astutely made it known to his own 
braves, as well as to his white neighbors, that the 
visions that visited him in his somnolent hours 
must somehow, somewhere, if within the range of 
possibility, materialize into visible, tangible reali- 
ties, and that those who could, and did not help in 
their materialization, would incur the anger of 
the great chief. Now it was the habit of the wily 
red man, whenever he greatly desired to acquire 
a new possession, to dream that the owner of the 
coveted article had presented it to him. Having 
dwelt near the paleface for a number of years, the 
old chief adopted the white man's mode of dress to 
a certain extent. Needing, or coveting, a new coat, 
he very conveniently dreamed that McKnight, who 
had kept a trading store on Indian Ridge, gave 
him a bolt of bright cloth which appealed strongly 
to his innate love of bright colors. Presenting 
himself at the trader's store, he related his dream 
to the owner of the cloth ; and McKnight not dar- 
ing to incur the enmity of the Indian by refusing 
to let him have the coveted article, presented it to 



150 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

him forthwith; but McKnight, equally as shrewd 
as the chief, soon did some dreaming on his own 
account, and in his vision he saw himself the 
owner of some four hundred acres of land in 
Indian Ridge, the property of John Durant. So 
with due ceremony he approached the chief and 
solemnly related his dream; and the old Indian, 
realizing that in the Anglo-Saxon he had met his 
match — nay, his superior in cunning — made over 
to McKnight the land. 

This plantation was afterwards bought by Doc- 
tor Marchant, a prominent citizen of Currituck, 
the friend and patron of Colonel Henry Shaw, 
whose gallant, though unsuccessful defense of 
Roanoke Island during the War between the 
States, brought honor and distinction to his native 
county. 

Currituck in the past has played well her part 
in making the history of the Old North State, and 
that a bright and prosperous future awaits her 
may easily be seen by all who can read the signs 
of the times. Though nature on the one hand has 
placed many obstacles in the way of her progress 
by barring her coast to incoming vessels, and by 
surrounding her with barren shores and impene- 
trable marshes, on the other hand she has been 
abundantly generous to the ancient district. 
Where her marshes are drained, as in the region 



151 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

around Moyock, the richest com land in the world 
is found. Her vast forests supply the great lum- 
ber mills of the Albemarle region ; her sound and 
reedy shores provide her children with an abund- 
ance of fish and game, and with the completion of 
the Inland Waterway, which in Carolina follows 
the course of the old Albemarle and Chesapeake 
Canal, Currituck will be placed in closer touch 
with the great world from which she has so long 
been in a measure isolated. Material prosperity, 
far in excess of the homely comforts which her 
people have always enjoyed, will inevitably be the 
heritage of her children. 



152 



CHAPTER XV 

EDENTON IN THE REVOLUTION 

FROM the day when the war cloud of the Revo- 
lution first began to gather upon the Ameri- 
can horizon, until the storm was spent and 
peace descended upon the land, the little coast 
town of Edenton played a conspicuous and heroic 
part in the struggle which for seven weary years 
wrought ruin and desolation throughout the thir- 
teen Colonies. 

As early as 1765, when the oppressive rule of 
England reached its culmination in the iniquitous 
Stamp Act, Edenton joined with the other Caro- 
lina towns in adopting resolutions expressing the 
strong indignation of her citizens at this act of 
tyranny on the part of George III and his Parlia- 
ment. In 1773 three of her prominent citizens, 
Joseph Hewes, Samuel Johnston and Edward Vail, 
were appointed on the Carolina Committee of Cor- 
respondence which wrote to the other colonies that 
North Carolina was ready to join them against 
the King and Parliament. When England put into 
operation the famous Boston Port Bill and that 
sturdy little New England City was on the verge 
of starvation, Joseph Hewes, a merchant of Eden- 
ton, who was later to play a prominent part in 



153 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Revolutionary events in North Carolina, joined 
with John Harvey, of Perquimans, in collecting 
supplies and provisions from the patriotic people 
of Albemarle, which they sent in the sloop Pene- 
lope to their distressed compatriots in far away 
Boston. Gratefully was the donation received by 
the inhabitants of that city, and a letter of thanks 
from the Boston committee amply repaid the 
donors for their generosity. 

One of the earliest, and certainly one of the 
most interesting events in the Revolutionary 
annals of Edenton, was the far-famed Edenton 
Tea Party, held at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth 
King, on October 25, 1774. This famous gather- 
ing of the Edenton women was convened for the 
purpose of protesting against the tax on tea, 
which England had lately begun to extort from the 
colonies, and also for heartily endorsing the work 
of the first people's Convention, which, at the call 
of John Harvey, had met at New Bern in August, 
1774. 

Before the meeting adjourned these brave and 
patriotic women had drawn up resolutions firmly 
declaring their intention to drink no more of the 
taxed tea, and to uphold and encourage in every 
possible way the men of the colony in their strug- 
gle to gain all the rights due them as British sub- 
jects. 



154 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

The news of this bold stand of the Edenton 
women spread far and wide, and was commented 
upon by the newspapers of the day, both in Amer- 
ica and England. Arthur Iredell, of London, 
brother of James Iredell, of Edenton, who mar- 
ried the sister of Samuel Johnston, on hearing of 
the event which seemed to have caused consider- 
able stir in London, as well as throughout the thir- 
teen Colonies, wrote to his brother from his home 
in London the following letter anent the affair: 

**I see by the papers the Edenton ladies have sig- 
nalized themselves by their protest against tea- 
drinking. The name of Johnston I see among 
them. Are any of my sister's relatives patriotic? 
I hope not, for we English are afraid of the male 
Congress; but if the ladies should attack us, the 
most fatal consequences are to be dreaded. So 
dextrous in the handling of a dart, each wound 
they give is mortal, while we, so unhappily formed 
by nature, the more we strive to conquer them, 
the more we are conquered. 

"The Edenton ladies, conscious of this super- 
iority on their side by former experiences, are 
willing to crush us into atoms by their omnipo- 
tency. The only security on our side, to prevent 
impending ruin is the probability that there are 
few places in America which possess so much 
female artillery as Edenton. Pray let me know 



155 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

all the particulars when you favor us with a 
letter/' 

The old house under whose roof this historic 
Tea Party was held has only of recent years been 
destroyed. Age and decay undermined its walls, 
and it was found necessary to tear it down, but a 
handsome bronze tea-pot on an iron pedestal now 
marks the site of the ancient building ; and within 
the halls of the State Capitol the Daughters of 
the Revolution have placed a bronze tablet in com- 
memoration of this spirited act of the women of 
Edenton. 

When John Harvey, of Perquimans, "The 
Father of the Revolution'' in North Carolina died, 
his mantle fell upon Samuel Johnston, of Eden- 
ton, whose residence at "Hayes" now became the 
headquarters of the Whig party in North Caro- 
lina, and his office the rendezvous of the leaders 
of the patriots in the State, among whom Hewes, 
Iredell and Johnston, all of Edenton, stood fore- 
most. So active were these three men in arous- 
ing and spreading the spirit of patriotism among 
their fellow-countrymen that McCree, in his "Ire- 
dell Letters," declares that "Much of the triumph 
at Moore's Creek must be ascribed to those three 
men, who at one time held frequent consultations 
in Johnston's office." 

By the close of 1774, and the beginning of 



156 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

1775, the flames of the Revolution, which had 
been slowly kindling, now burst into open confla- 
gration, and Edenton began to experience some- 
thing of the consequences of war. 

Her militia had for some time been drilling, in 
preparation for the inevitable struggle; and Mrs. 
Iredell, in a letter to her husband, written in the 
spring of 1775, thus expresses the general anxiety 
and the apprehensive state of mind of the Eden- 
ton people: "The drum which is now beating 
while our soldiers exercise, drives every cheerful 
thought from my mind, and leaves it oppressed 
with melancholy reflections on the horrors of 
war." 

In November of that year emissaries sent by 
Lord Dunmore, the Governor of Virginia, were 
discovered near the town, endeavoring to incite 
the slaves of that section to rise against their mas- 
ters, murder them, and join the Tory army. But 
General Robert Howe, at the head of a detachment 
from his regiment, quickly drove these agents 
away, and thwarted the dastardly attempt; then 
marching on with six hundred North Carolina 
militia, into Virginia, the gallant General reached 
Norfolk two days after the victory of the patriots 
at Great Bridge, helped to expel Dunmore from 
Norfolk, and to take possession of the city for the 
Americans. 



157 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

In April, 1776, the Halifax Convention author- 
ized the delegates from North Carolina to the 
Continental Congress of that year, "to concur with 
the delegates of the other Colonies in declaring 
independence," and upon Joseph Hewes, of Eden- 
ton, fell the honor of presenting the Halifax Reso- 
lution of 1776 to the Congress at Philadelphia. 
To the instructions of the State he represented, 
Hewes added his own urgent plea for immediate 
action, and cast his State's vote squarely against 
postponing the declaration of independence. When 
the Continental Congress finally agreed to secede 
from the English Government, Hewes, with John 
Penn and William Hooper, of North Carolina, 
affixed his name to that famous document in which 
the thirteen Colonies foreswore their allegiance to 
King George. 

Some two months after the Halifax Convention, 
and two weeks before the Continental Congress 
had formally declared independence, the vestry 
of Old St. Paul's Church in Edenton met in solemn 
conclave, and impelled by the wave of intense 
patriotism now sweeping over the land, drew up 
the so-called ''Declaration of Independence of St. 
Paul's Parish," the context of which is as follows : 

"We, the Subscribers, professing our Allegiance 
to the King, and acknowledging the Constitutional 
executive power of Government, do solemnly pro- 



158 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

fess, testify and declare, that we do absolutely 
believe that neither the Parliament of Great 
Britain nor any member nor any Constituent 
Branch thereof, have a right to impose taxes upon 
these Colonies or to regulate the internal policy 
thereof ; and that all attempts by fraud or force to 
establish and exercise such claims and powers are 
violation of the peace and security of the people, 
and ought to be resisted to the utmost, and the 
people of this Province singly and collectively are 
bound by the acts and resolutions of the Conti- 
nental and Provincial Congresses, because in both 
they are freely represented by persons chosen 
by themselves, and we do solemnly and sincerely 
promise and engage under the sanction of virtue, 
honor, and the Sacred love of liberty and our 
country to maintain and support all and every 
acts, resolutions and regulations of the said Con- 
tinental and Provincial Congresses to the utmost 
of our power and ability. In testimony whereof 
we have set our hands this 19th day of June, 
1776.'' 

During the winter of 1777 and 1778 nine bat- 
talions of soldiers from North Carolina were shar- 
ing with their comrades from the other colonies 
the hardships of those terrible months at Valley 
Forge. Half naked and starving, the soldiers 
would doubtless have given up the struggle to live 



159 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

through the awful winter, had not Governor Cas- 
well, of North Carolina, energetically set about 
securing the needed supplies for the army. Joseph 
Hewes, responding generously to the call for help, 
sent his own ships to the West Indies to obtain 
necessaries for the army, had them brought to 
Edenton, and from there sent by wagon to Valley 
Forge. 

After the American victory at Saratoga, France, 
who had been until then hesitating as to what 
course she should pursue in regard to helping the 
Americans against the ancient foe of the French, 
now yielded at last to Franklin's persuasions, and 
promised to send a large fleet and four thousand 
troops to aid the Colonies. 

A party of French gentlemen, sympathizing 
with the Americans, and anxious to aid in the 
cause, came over to the States in advance of the 
army sent by the government, and landing in 
Edenton, were so agreeably impressed with the 
social life of the hospitable town, that they spent 
several weeks in the little metropolis. Three of 
these foreigners. Messieurs Pinchieu, Noirmont de 
la Neuville, and La Tours, seem to have made 
many friends in the town, and to have been the 
recipients of much hospitality on the part of the 
gentlefolk of Edenton. 

Judge Iredell, who spoke French fluently, made 



160 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

a strong impression upon the strangers; and M. 
Pinchieu became one of his warm friends. The 
visit of the French officers to Edenton was made 
the occasion of many social functions, and before 
the foreigners departed from the town, they gave 
a grand ball to the Edenton ladies, who had 
made their stay so pleasant. The modest colonial 
maidens of old Edenton, though dazzled and 
charmed by the airs and graces of the gay and de- 
bonair strangers, at times found the manners of 
their foreign guests a little too free for their 
comfort. Miss Nellie Blair, in a letter to her 
uncle. Judge Iredell, declares most emphatically 
her displeasure at the decidedly French behavior 
of one of her too attentive foreign admirers. 

On leaving Edenton, the Frenchmen proceeded 
to New Bern, where they tendered their swords 
to the General Assembly, and offered their ser- 
vices in the American cause; but for reasons not 
stated their offer was declined. 

The many acts of open rebellion on the part of 
prominent citizens of Edenton had by this time 
made the town a marked spot in the eyes of the 
enemy ; and the fact that she was the most import- 
ant port in the Albemarle region, and that her 
destruction would be a heavy blow to the entire 
State, also singled her out as an important point 
of attack. 



161 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

So in 1779, when Sir George Collier entered 
Hampton Roads, gutted Norfolk, took possession 
of Portsmouth, and burned Suffolk, the citizens 
of Edenton were thoroughly alarmed. The Dismal 
Swamp was on fire, and the crackling of the burn- 
ing reed resembling the reports of musket shot, 
caused many to think that a battle was going on 
near the town. Many of the inhabitants began to 
pack up their household goods, ready to leave 
when the British should enter the town. 

But for some unknown reason the enemy, 
though so near, failed to descend upon the town; 
and as days and weeks passed by, the cloud of ap- 
prehension began to disperse, and life in the vil- 
lage to resume its normal course. 

Events, however, were to prove that the danger 
of invasion was averted for a time only. In the 
fall of 1780, just after the disastrous defeat of 
the Americans at Camden, and prior to Cornwal- 
lis' march into North Carolina, General Leslie, 
of the British army, was sent from New York to 
Virginia to keep the Americans in southeastern 
Virginia and Albemarle from joining Greene's 
army in the effort to repel the invasion of Corn- 
wallis. 

Edenton was again in danger. The enemy, two 
thousand strong, were camped at Portsmouth, and 
one thousand were reported to have set out from 



162 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Virginia on their way to attack the town. To 
add to the terror of the inhabitants, two British 
galleys, with sixty men each, had slipped through 
Roanoke Inlet, and were making for the little 
port. A letter from Mrs. Blair to James Iredell, 
written during those anxious days, gives a graphic 
description of conditions in Edenton at this junc- 
ture. "Vessels cannot get in," she writes; "two 
row galleys are between us and the bar, and are 
daily expected in Edenton. If they come, I do not 
know what we shall do. We are unable to run 
away, and I have hardly a negro well enough to 
dress us a little of anything to eat. We hear that 
there is an English fleet in Virginia, landing men 
at Kempe's." 

Governor Nash, realizing that the town was in 
imminent danger, now ordered General Benbury, 
of Edenton, to join General Isaac Gregory at 
Great Swamp, near the Virginia border, and aid 
him in preventing General Leslie from entering 
Albemarle. At this post a battle was fought be- 
tween Leslie's men and the militia under Ben- 
bury and Gregory, in which the latter were vic- 
torious. A little later Gregory wrote Governor 
Nash that Leslie's army had withdrawn from Vir- 
ginia, but that he had not been able to ascertain 
the destination of the enemy. However, it soon 
became known that Leslie was hurrying to Cam- 



163 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

den, South Carolina, to join Cornwallis in his 
attempt to sweep through North Carolina and 
conquer that State, as he had conquered her sister 
State on the south. 

With Leslie's army removed from the vicinity, 
Edenton remained for a few months free from the 
fear of invasion ; but not for long did her citizens 
enjoy a respite from anxiety, for in January, 
1781, the traitor, Benedict Arnold, was sent by 
the British to occupy the posts in Virginia lately 
deserted by Leslie. From Portsmouth Arnold 
wrote to General Sir Henry Clinton, K. C. B., 
that he was planning to send boats carrying five; 
hundred men through Currituck Inlet, sweep the 
sound as high as Edenton, destroy that town and 
its shipping, and then proceed to New Bern, which 
he hoped to serve in like manner. Then he ex- 
pected to post armed vessels outside Currituck 
Inlet, distress the people of the coast country, and 
thus keep the people of eastern Carolina so busy 
defending their own homes that they would not 
be able to send men to interfere with the plans of 
Cornwallis. 

Arnold asked Clinton for 100 ship carpenters 
to build the vessels necessary for the execution 
of his plans, but the traitor was not able to carry 
out his designs against the eastern towns, for on 
arriving in Virginia he found himself so hated 



164 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

and shunned by the British officers over whom he 
was placed that he soon resigned his command of 
the Virginia posts to General Phillips, of the 
British army, and instead of proceeding against 
Edenton, he undertook another expedition up the 
James River. 

General Phillips, who now assumed command 
of the British in south-eastern Virginia, immed- 
iately began to plan to join Cornwallis, who in 
the meantime had won the doubtful victory of 
Guilford Courthouse and had retreated to Wil- 
mington. 

The situation in Edenton was now alarming in 
the extreme. Leslie had 3,500 men in Virginia, 
2,500 of whom. General Gregory wrote Iredell, 
had embarked at Kempe's Landing, supposedly 
for Edenton. Rumor had it that there were seven 
British boats at North Landing, and some at 
Knott's Island. Cornwallis' Army was marching 
northward from Wilmington, and reports from 
nearby counties that lay in his path, told of the 
atrocious crimes committed by his men against 
women and children, of devastated fields and 
homes burned and ruined. Hundreds of negroes 
were foraging for the British army, and the Tories 
everywhere were wreaking vengeance upon their 
Whig neighbors. 

The long dreaded day at last arrived. Edenton 



165 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

was raided, and the vessels in her harbor burned 
and carried off. Eden House, some ten miles 
from the town, the home of Robert Smith, a 
prominent merchant of Eden ton, was plundered, 
and valuable papers destroyed. Many of the 
beautiful homes of the planters in the neighbor- 
hood were destroyed, and a schooner belonging to 
Robert Smith, and one, the property of a Mr. 
Littlejohn, were captured by the enemy and car- 
ried off down the sound. 

The danger was so real that many families fled 
from the town and sought refuge in Windsor, and 
the homes of that hospitable little village were 
crowded with women and children. But in spite 
of the discomfort that host and guest alike must 
have suffered from the overflow of visitors, the 
letters of the refugees to their husbands and 
fathers in Edenton speak in warm praise of the 
cheerfulness and good humor that prevailed in the 
little town during those trying and anxious days, 
and of the merry social gatherings held in honor 
of the guests. 

Though panic-stricken at first when confronted 
by the long apprehended danger, the citizens soon 
rallied and bravely resisted the foe. Charles" 
Johnson, writing to James Iredell, says: "The 
inhabitants in general and the sailors, have and do 
turn out unanimously. I never saw nor could I 



166 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

hope to see so much public spirit, personal courage 
and intrepid resolution." Robert Smith's schooner 
was retaken from the enemy, and later the Row 
Galley that had invaded Edenton and captured 
the schooners was taken, and her commander, 
Captain Quinn, lodged in Edenton jail. 

In the meantime the refugees at Windsor were 
beginning to doubt their wisdom in leaving their 
homes for the Bertie town. Many of them were 
afraid that they had only jumped from the frying- 
pan into the fire. Cornwallis was only thirty 
miles away, in Halifax, and the Windsor people 
were in daily terror that foraging parties from his 
army would descend upon their homes. To add 
to the danger of their situation, the hated and 
dreaded Arnold, whose expedition up the James 
had been attended by the perpetration of many 
dastardly cruelties, was marching south to join 
Cornwallis in Carolina. Six hundred negroes, sent 
by Cornwallis, were near Edenton, and other 
bands of foragers, two thousand in all, were pil- 
laging and plundering in the wake of the British 
army. 

Fortunately for Edenton and the adjacent 
towns, Anthony Wayne was stationed at Roanoke 
with his troops. Hearing of the ravages com- 
mitted by Cornwallis' men, he marched in pursuit 
of the enemy, who now left North Carolina, en- 



167 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

tered Virginia, burned South Quays, and then pro- 
ceeded on their way to Yorktown. 

In June, 1781, Samuel Johnston, of Edenton, 
was elected delegate to the Continental Congress, 
the first that had assembled since the adoption of 
the Articles of Confederation. His high ability 
and acknowledged statesmanship won for him in 
that body the distinguished honor of being elected 
to the office of President of Congress. But the 
critical situation in Edenton, and his anxiety con- 
cerning his family, decided him to decline the 
office and return home to share the fortunes of his 
townsmen and to render what aid he could to his 
own people. 

In August, 1781, Charles Johnson wrote Gov- 
ernor Burke that a French fleet had appeared off 
the Virginia Capes, and had driven back General 
Leslie; and General Gregory, who had been sta- 
tioned at Edmund's Hill in Nansemond County, 
Virginia, to hold Leslie in check, reported at the 
same time that the enemy had evacuated Ports- 
mouth, and that it was useless to keep his soldiers 
there any longer. 

The British army had by this time reached 
Yorktown, where, on the 19th of October the 
famous surrender took place, and the long, weary 
struggle for independence was over; but it was 
nearly a month later before the joyful news of 



168 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Washington's victory over Cornwallis reached 
Carolina. On November 18th the British troops 
in the State embarked from Wilmington, and 
North Carolina was troubled by the red-coats no 
more. 

But though the surrender at Yorktov^n had con- 
vinced the British that she had lost her hold upon 
the American Colonies, it was not until Septem- 
ber, 1782, that the King acknowledged the inde- 
pendence of his former American subjects; and 
still another year passed before the Treaty of 
Paris was signed, formally acknowledging the 
United States a separate and independent power. 

During these two years North Carolina was 
torn and harrassed by bands of Tories; and in 
South Carolina the armies of Greene and Leslie 
were still engaged in fierce skirmishes. Leslie 
was at last hemmed in at Charleston by Greene's 
troops, and both his men and Greene's soldiers 
were in great distress for want of food and 
clothing. 

In the summer of 1782 Greene warned the peo- 
ple of North Carolina that the British in Charles- 
ton were preparing to send four vessels to raid 
Edenton, New Bern and Wilmington; and once 
more the inhabitants of these towns were plunged 
into a state of alarm. 

Governor Burke immediately ordered General 



169 



IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE 

Gregory to have 500 men ready to march at a 
moment's notice to Edenton to repel the expected 
invasion, and also ordered him to ask the mer- 
chants of Edenton how many vessels they thought 
necessary to protect the town. The Governor fur- 
thermore gave Gregory instructions to purchase 
cannon and to draft men to man the boats, guar- 
anteeing, himself, full pay for men and supplies. 

But the fleet of which Greene had written did 
not arrive, though during the summer of 1782, 
Tory galleys appeared in the bay and kept the 
town in constant terror of another raid. The fall 
passed without bringing the expected invasion, 
and finally the joyful news came that on December 
14th the British had evacuated Charleston,* and 
that their fleet had sailed for the North. 

With the departure of the British fleet and 
army from the South, all fear of further invasion 
was over, and the little town of Edenton settled 
down to long years of peace and happiness. 



FINIS 



170 



i 



A 



